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CHAPTER 8 188 The current dissertation applied an experimental psychopathology approach to investigate the role of safety behaviors in the persistence of irrational fears. In this final chapter, I discuss the main results regarding the role of safety behavior in the maintenance of threat beliefs, the exacerbation and return of threat beliefs, and the effect of approach behavior on danger perceptions and exposure outcomes. Additionally, I review the potential clinical implications of these findings, and present suggestions for future research. SAFETY BEHAVIOR AND THE MAINTENANCE OF THREAT BELIEFS In chapter 2 , we tested whether the negative effects of safety behavior on exposure outcomes depend on whether safety behavior precludes the occurrence of threat in a fear conditioning study (van Uijen, Dalmaijer, van den Hout, & Engelhard, 2017). Participants underwent fear acquisition, learned to use safety behavior that precluded the occurrence of threat, and safety behavior that minimized the severity of threat, but did not preclude its occurrence. Next, participants used safety behavior that precluded the occurrence of threat, safety behavior that minimized threat severity, or no safety behavior during an extinction procedure. The results showed that safety behavior that precluded the occurrence of threat prevented extinction learning, and that safety behavior that minimized the severity of threat allowed extinction learning for several participants, but prevented extinction learning for other participants (van Uijen, Dalmaijer, et al., 2017). Additionally, in chapter 3 , we investigated whether using cleaning safety behavior during exposure to a contaminant prevented a decrease in threat beliefs related to feelings of contamination, fear, danger, and disgust (van Uijen, van den Hout, Klein Schiphorst, Knol, & Engelhard, 2017). Healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) repeated exposure to a contaminant whilst abstaining from safety behavior, (2) repeated exposure to a contaminant with the use of disinfectant wipes