The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of trait anxiety and social desirability on skin conductance responses (SCRs) following exposure to masked and unmasked pictures in a non-clinical sample. The most prominent results were found with regard to masked pictures (i.e. subliminal). Higher levels of social desirability were associated with a decrease in SCRs to masked threat pictures (relative to neutral), whereas elevated levels of trait anxiety were associated with an increase in SCRs. This latter effect, however, was mainly seen among participants who simultaneously scored low on social desirability. These results were discussed in terms of trait anxiety (combined with lower social desirability scores) being associated with (i) enhanced autonomic responses to threatening information most evident at a pre-attentive level, that (ii) may potentially be a vulnerability marker for anxiety disturbances.