People with a behaviorally inhibited temperament (reticence to act within the environment) are 33% more likely to be diagnosed with a stress or anxiety disorder (Gladstone and Parker, 2005). Avoidance preservation, or the maintenance of a learned action to circumvent an aversive stimulus, is a key characteristic of behaviorally inhibited individuals (Jiao et al., 2015). The Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rat strain has been studied extensively as a model for anxiety disorders, as they show faster lever-press avoidance and slower extinction rates as compared to the non-behaviorally inhibited Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (Servatius et al, 2008). In this study, we are examining the differences in response between female WKY rats and female SD rats in open field testing, a lever-press avoidance paradigm and immunohistochemistry analyses. In the lever-press avoidance paradigm, we are specifically examining the differences in avoidance acquisition in both 100% reinforcement of a paired tone-shock trials and 50% partial reinforcement with some tone-only trials between both rat strains. The results of the open field testing showed significantly lower response latency times and number of sites visited in the female WKY rats as compared to the female SD rats, indicating behavioral inhibition. In the lever-press paradigm, it was found that both the 100% and 50% reinforced WKY groups had higher avoidance acquisition than both 100% and 50% reinforced SD groups. The behaviorally inhibited rats were extremely influenced by the tone-shock paradigm and this enhanced ability to learn to evade aversive stimuli could be a major reason why behaviorally inhibited individuals are more likely to acquire anxiety and stress disorders. Lastly, immunohistochemistry analyses using zif as an immediate early gene marker to detect active brain regions, indicate some differentially activated circuits in avoidance learning between strains.