Previous research has shown that anxious individuals show selective attentional biases towards anxiety- and threat-related information that may be associated with the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. Based on this assumption, an Attentional Bias Modification Treatment (ABMT), using a modified dot probe task, had been developed in previous research that induces an attentional bias towards neutral information and that has shown promising results. Primary goals of the present

more »

... were to test for the first time a completely internet-delivered ABMT in a sample of sub-clinical anxious participants and to investigate whether implicit and explicit instructions (describing the mechanisms of the ABMT to participants in detail) resulted in comparable effects of the ABMT. This was also the first test of the ABMT in a German-speaking sample. Furthermore, the reliability of the dot probe task was also assessed. 60 participants with sub-clinical anxiety were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (implicit instruction, explicit instruction, placebo control condition) and completed six ABMT sessions (using words as stimuli) over a period of two weeks. Results showed that at the end of the training participants' attendance of threat-related words had slightly but unexpectedly increased, regardless of treatment condition. Additionally, the explicit instruction condition showed strong short-term effects, highlighting the necessity of using standardized instructions in the ABMT. Given our results, the reliability of the dot probe task in an online-based setting also seems questionable. Limitations and implications for further research are discussed.