THE TRUTH BEHIND SAFETY BEHAVIOURS

The Truth Behind Safety Behaviours

Things that make you feel safe may not necessarily be beneficial for you in the long-term

Jeannette Qhek · 11 November, 2022 | Category: Mental Health, Personal Development

What are safety behaviours?

When we feel threatened, our first instinct is of course to protect ourselves. For example, when we feel anxious about a social event, we would naturally want to avoid it in order to keep ourselves “safe”. These behaviours in attempt to protect ourselves from a perceived threat or danger is called safety behaviours. Basically, safety behaviours are used in an attempt to prevent fears from coming true and to feel more comfortable in fearful situations. While these behaviours may feel helpful, they may worsen anxiety in the longer term.

3 types of safety behaviours

Safety behaviors can come in various forms. Let’s explore three common types that are documented by research:

1. Avoidance

Let’s get the most obvious safety behavior out of the way: avoidance. Avoidance comes up in a variety of ways. Avoidance could be in the form of avoiding or rejecting a feared situation completely. Or it could come in more more subtle forms like avoiding eye contact or only certain people or aspects of a social situation. For instance, avoiding eye contact while grocery shopping could be a type of safety behaviour as well. Other times, people also avoid new experiences because they are not certain if they will feel positive about them. For instance, avoiding taking up a hobby class or starting out a new business venture may stem from fearing how it would turn out. Avoidance can infiltrate our lives in countless ways if we aren’t aware of it. You may want to make a list of the ways in which you avoid so you can become more self-aware!

2. Information Seeking

Information seeking can be another form of safety behaviour. Generally speaking, seeking out information is a positive trait. Research has found that seeking information can be a way to help reduce the uneasy feeling of uncertainty and guide decision-making [1]. However, when it is solely dictated by anxiety, we can fall into these rabbit holes that leave us more stressed and unsure. For example, an anxious person may find themselves spending months searching for the “best” flights and comparing 100 different hotels and all reviews while planning for a vacation. It may get to the point where you need a vacation from your vacation planning.

3. Delayed Decision Making

Sometimes, to avoid the pressures of making decisions in life, we might procrastinate making decisions fearing they might not pan out. This may come in the form of making impulsive decisions in the last minute. People hold things off to the last minute, as a means to be held less accountable for potentially undesirable outcomes. Research has found positive relationship between trait anxiety and impulsive behavior in decision making [2]. For example: An anxious or worried person may not decide on a course of action until closer to due date. If the decision turns out poorly, they may then say “oh, well it was a last-minute decision.” In a way, their delayed decision making becomes their safety net to reduce their pressures.

Why are safety behaviors harmful?

While safety behaviors may feel helpful because they reduce anxious feelings in the short-term, they can keep anxiety going in the longer term because…

We may unknowingly cultivate an unhealthy reliance on them. If we use our safety behaviours and our fears don’t come true, we might believe that the safety behaviours helped to ‘prevent’ our fears. In this way, we are in fact wiring our brain to think that we need these behaviours to be safe. However, more often than not, our feared outcome are psychological in nature and might not have come true even without the safety behaviour. But our brain will not register this as long as we continue relying on our safety behaviours.
Safety behaviours often directs attention towards the self. As such, less attention is available to deal with the anxiety-provoking situation or the “task at hand”. Our awareness narrows and becomes overly focused on ourselves (e.g. our thoughts, how we are feeling), which can lead to further anxiety.
Safety behaviours limits us from truly overcoming our fears, even when we confront them. For example, we may choose to attend a social event (i.e., confront our social fears) but avoid eye contact with people (i.e., safety behaviour). As a result, anxiety remains high even after we try to confront a fearful situation because we are engaging in safety behaviours to prevent ourselves from fully testing our fears. It’s important to recognise safety behaviours so you can plan to stop using them in anxiety-provoking situations.

How to drop safety behaviours?

In therapy, counsellors typically use what is called “gradual exposure” to help patients or clients drop their safety behaviours. Through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for instance, individuals are taught how to engage in exposure where they face the situation that typically bring about anxiety while refraining from engaging in safety behaviors. With the help of a therapist, individuals design fear hierarchies where they create and list of fearful situations and rank them from least to most difficult to approach through a rating scale. Then, with the guidance of a therapist, individuals will then start exposing themselves with lower rated items to gain confidence and then gradually work their way up to more difficult items. Individuals work up to the more difficult items on their exposure hierarchy as they gain practice and confidence with lower rated items.

Question is, do we need to drop safety behaviours completely?

Engaging safety behaviours in moderate amounts are completely fine, or even helpful. The more important thing is the intention behind the behaviour. For instance, when you say no to a social event, ask yourself if it is because you are needing the rest or letting your worries dictate your behaviour. If there are legitimate worries, engage in problem-solving while remembering that some discomfort is meant to be tolerated as it can’t be avoided. It’s important to recognise safety behaviours, especially if they are engaged in an excessive manner, so you can take steps to address them and lead a more fear-free life.

Reference:

Charpentier, C. J., Cogliati Dezza, I., Vellani, V., Globig, L. K., Gädeke, M., & Sharot, T. (2022). Anxiety increases information-seeking in response to large changes. Scientific reports, 12(1), 7385. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-10813-9
Xia L, Gu R, Zhang D, Luo Y. Anxious Individuals Are Impulsive Decision-Makers in the Delay Discounting Task: An ERP Study. Front Behav Neurosci. 2017 Jan 24;11:5. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00005. PMID: 28174528; PMCID: PMC5258725.

Written By:
Jeannette Qhek
BSc in Psychology & Human Resources (Singapore Management University)
Founder of Chill By Nette