Attentional bias for threatening stimuli is widely considered a maladaptive process, largely due to its established association with anxiety vulnerability. However, allocating attentional resources to respond to threatening cues that signal a danger that can be avoided or mitigated should promote effective responses. To test the hypothesis that individuals align attentional biases towards threat depending on whether such a bias is adaptive or maladaptive, a novel attentional bias alignment assessment task was developed and tested. We manipulated the control that 160 participants had in avoiding exposure to a danger (loss of money) signalled by a threatening cue. In high control blocks it was adaptive to attend to threat, as participants were highly likely to control avoidance of danger, whereas, in low control blocks it was maladaptive to attend to threat, as the danger was unlikely to be avoided. The results supported our hypothesis, in so far that participants demonstrated greater attentional bias to threat in the high control condition, indexed by reductions on a central task indicating attention was allocated to the periphery where the threat may appear, and reduced attention bias under conditions of low controllability. Participants showed greater attention bias when it was adaptive, and reduced bias when it was maladaptive to do so (p <.001, cohens d = .61). The results provide proof-of-principle for the alignment hypothesis, demonstrating that individuals are capable of aligning their attentional bias depending on its adaptiveness in the current context.