Generalization: choice phase—fear of unpleasant pictures
SHOCKS
This phase included a 15-trials block which was identical to the choice phase—fear of shocks block in all aspects, except that here participants chose which strategy they wish to implement while anticipating a possible unpleasant picture (see Supplementary Information To ensure that participants adhered to the experimental instructions, at the end of the study they were asked to write down and describe in their own words what they thought about when implementing each of the instructions, namely, experience—fear of shocks, experience—fear of unpleasant pictures, and the two distraction types. Based on these written descriptions, adherence to both distraction types was 100%, mitigating the concern that participants did not implement the control-distraction because it was presented as, and learned to be, ineffective. For the experience instructions, levels of adherence were very high (93.75%).