Normative development of fears

Question 1

What does fear feel like for:
1. Physiological
2. Behavioural
3. Cognitive
4. Differences in terms of subjective feelings people feel

Answer 1

1. Physiological
   - sweaty palms
   - butterflies
   - racing heart
   - shaky
2. Behavioural
   - defensive
   - urge to flee
   - frozen
3. Cognitive
   - worry
   - can’t think straight
   - impending doom
4. Differences in terms of subjective feelings people feel
   - upset
   - panicked
   - terrified
   - thrilling

Question 2

What are we afraid of?

Answer 2

Different situation stimuli can cause fear

It tends to be things that maybe represent a danger to our safety or well-being

Common fears include: heights, particular animals, social fears

Question 3

What are three ways children respond to fear?

Answer 3

• fight response
• flight response
• freeze

Question 4

Childhood fears:
1- how are they assessed
2- characteristics of normal childhood fears?
3- what did Gullone (2000) study reveal?

Answer 4

1- Assessed directly (and often retrospectively) using child interviews, questionnaires, parent/teacher report. (these measures have limitations- shown in essential reading)

2- Normal childhood fears are:
- Commonly experienced/universal
- Relatively mild
- Appear and disappear spontaneously
- Follow a predictable pattern in terms of content
- Decrease with age

3- Gullone (2000) reviewed interview studies with 4-19 year olds:
— Average number of fears is 2-5 per child.
— Tend to elicit general themes e.g. animals, death/injury, the unknown, social concerns.

Question 5

Bauer (1976)
Method and Results

Answer 5

Method
- Interview study
- Aged 4-6 (n = 19), 6-8 (n = 15), 10-12 (n= 20).
- ‘What are you afraid of most?’
- Then put answers into categories

Results
- categories include injury, monsters, animals, bedtime fears, frightening dreams
- Between age of 4 and 12 it depends on the category of fear
- Fears in most categories decrease with age, especially for monsters
- Fears of injury/ physical danger increase with age

Question 6

Fear Survey Schedule for Children - Revised (FSSC-R)
Ollendick (1983)
What is it?

Answer 6

One of the most commonly used measures

80 item measure of children’s fear in response to a range of specific stimuli/situations (none, some, a lot).

Question 7

Fear Survey Schedule for Children - Revised
- What does it measure?
- What are the five reliable factors it includes?

Answer 7

Measures number, severity and type of normal fears children experience.

Five reliable factors:
- Fear of danger and death (e.g. being hit by a car or truck)
- Fear of failure and criticism (e.g. looking foolish)
- Fear of the unknown (e.g. going to bed in the dark)
- Fear of animals (e.g. snakes)
- Stress and medical fears (e.g. getting an injection from the doctor)

Question 8

Methodological Issues with the Fear Survey Schedule for Children - Revised (FSSC-R)

Answer 8

• Some of the items are quite outdated and contemporary threats (e.g. climate change) not included
• May not adequately capture cultural variation in childhood fears.
• Can only measure what is included, not an exhaustive list
• Might not index actual frequency of fears

Question 9

Ollendick, King & Frary, 1989
Method

Answer 9

• 1185 children and adolescents (395 aged 7-10, 449 aged 11-13, 341 aged 14-16).
• Recruited in USA and Australia.
• Average of 14 fears reported
• Top fears relate to dangerous situations and physical harm.

Question 10

Moderators of Childhood Fears

Answer 10

1. Gender
2. Cultural variation
3. Socioeconomic effects

Question 11

Ollendick, King & Frary, 1989
Results

Answer 11

• Children who identified as girls report more fears than children who identified as boys.
• Fears highest for death/danger items.

Question 12

Gender effects
1- Gullone & King (1993)
2- what might gender effects be explained by?
3- Gender role orientation theories

Answer 12

1- Gullone & King (1993) - items that most strongly discriminated between boys and girls:
— Rats, spiders, snakes, mice, creepy houses, being alone, bad dreams.

2- Gender effects may be explained by biological sex differences and/or gender role orientation.
— High femininity and low masculinity associated with greater anxiety and avoidance (Ginsburg & Silverman, 2000; Muris, Meesters & Knoops, 2005).
— Gender role orientation stronger predictor of fear than child’s biological sex (Brody, Hay & Vandewater, 1990).

3- Gender role orientation theories: Children raised to develop interests, attitudes, and values considered consistent with their biological sex (according to social norms). Results in masculine and feminine sex-typed behaviours and characteristics.

Question 13

Cultural Variation:
1- what is there across “Western” countries?
2- how do fear levels vary?
3- what has been found within-countries?

Answer 13

1- Across “Western” countries lots of consistency:
- Number of fears decreases with age.
- Girls more fearful than boys.
- Content of fears appears to show similar developmental pattern (but also some idiosyncrasies e.g., sharks in Australia).

2- Fear levels may vary as a function of cultural group membership.

3- Cross-cultural differences have been found within-countries:
— e.g., in the USA, Hispanic youth display higher fear and anxiety than White youth

Question 14

Ollendick et al. (1996)
- sample
- differences in?
- socialisation practices?

Answer 14

• 1200 participants aged 7-17 years in Nigeria, China, USA and Australia

Differences in intensity and patterns of fears:
- Nigeria > China > America = Australia.
- Girls > boys apart from Nigeria.
- Fears decreased with age only in USA and Australian samples. No age differences in Nigerian sample and peak in anxiety in late childhood (10-14yrs) in Chinese sample.
- Common fears primarily death/danger related but more social-evaluative and safety-related fear in Nigerian and Chinese samples.
- Idiosyncratic fears – ghosts in China, looking foolish in USA, ocean in Nigeria, guns in Australia.

Socialisation practices?
- Collectivist cultures emphasise self-control, social inhibition and compliance with social norms which might fuel greater fear and anxiety.

Question 15

Socioeconomic effects
1- what do lower SES children report?
2- differences in content of fears
3- what are low SES characterised by
4- what are children in low SES environments exposed to?

Answer 15

1- Lower SES children report more fears

2- Differences in content of fears:
- Low SES: animals, strange people, abandonment by parents, death, violence, knives.
- Middle/Upper SES: heights, ill health, rollercoasters, pet’s safety.

3- low SES are characterised by more uncertainty

4- Children in low SES environments are exposed to more specific threats and enhanced general feelings of fear and anxiety.

Question 16

Developmental Patterns
- What age to fears develop?
- Some evidence that this patterns maps…
- BUT

Answer 16

• Infants: environmental stimuli (loud noises, separation, unusual stimuli).
• 4-8 years: ghosts, imaginary creatures, and animals.
• 10-12 years: social fears, self-injury.
• Some evidence that this patterns maps on to the age of onset of phobias (Field & Davey, 2001; Muris & Field, 2011):
• Height/water phobia begins in infancy
• Animal phobias start between 7-9
• Social fears in pre-adolescence

BUT
Some researchers argue that some fears may be innate and present from very early in development e.g. snakes, spiders.

Question 17

Developmental Patterns:
- Bauer (1976)
- Muris, Merckelbach, Gadet & Moulaert (2000):

Answer 17

Bauer (1976):
- Fear of monsters and ghosts decreases with age
- Fear of bodily injury and physical danger increases with age

Muris, Merckelbach, Gadet & Moulaert (2000):
- Fears and scary dreams more common in 7-9 year olds compared to 10-12 year olds.
- Worry more common in 10-12 year olds than 4 – 6 year olds.

both of these studies are between 4-12 years so we have some sense of developmental patterns between these ages.

Question 18

Development Patterns:
Westenberg, Drewes, Goedhart, Siebelink & Treffers, 2004
Method and Results

Answer 18

Method
- 882 participants aged 8-18 years.
- Assessed social and physical fears using the FSSC-R.

Results
- Physical fears tended to decrease across the 3 age groups. So physical fear came less common with age.

(This is in line with what we expect from a typical developmental pattern)

• Social fears were increasing with age

(Again fits with what we expect for developmental pattern)

• The outlier being punishment which decreases from that middle childhood time point to adolescence

Question 19

What did the video clip on development of fears show?

Answer 19

• Suggests some fears can be learned through conditioning experiences i.e. verbal information, vicarious learning.
• Some fears may be innate or we might be prepared to learn them very rapidly and at an early age.

Question 20

Evolutionary Approach:
1- which individuals does natural selection favour?
2- how does the fear system evolve?
3- what might some fears be?
4- how might we be prepared to rapidly acquire some fears?

Answer 20

1- Natural selection favours individuals who rapidly learn about threats that pose a danger to self because this facilitates survival.

2- Fear system evolved to focus on threats at ages at which those threats would have been greatest risk to our ancestors.

3- Some fears may be innate and may not need to be learned at all

4- We may be prepared to rapidly acquire some fears with little or no prior learning.

Question 21

Cognitive Development::
1- where does fear and anxiety originate from?
2- what does conceptualisation of threat depend on?
3- what happens as cognitive abilities develop?
4- what about fear-provoking stimuli and cognitive features of anxiety?

Answer 21

1- Fear and anxiety originates from conceptualisation of threat.

2- Conceptualisation of threat depends on a child’s cognitive and physical abilities (Vasey, 1993).

3- As cognitive abilities (e.g. biological regulation, memory, self-control, theory of mind, counterfactual reasoning) develop, fear and anxiety become more sophisticated.

4- Range of fear-provoking stimuli broadens and cognitive features of anxiety (e.g. worry) become more prevalent.

Question 22

Fears in infancy:
- common fears
- evolutionary account
- cognitive account

Answer 22

Common Fears
- Environmental stimuli e.g. loud noises, water, heights, strangers, some animals e.g. snakes/spiders.
- Separation anxiety e.g. loss of physical support and comfort.

Evolutionary Account
- Young children are defenseless so adaptive to fear wide range of environmental stimuli.
- Fear and avoidance keeps infant within protective distance of caregiver, maximising survival.

Cognitive Account
- Cognitive capacities are limited so fear is directed at immediate, concrete environmental threats.
- By 9 months, children develop ability to differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar faces so separation anxiety, fear of strangers emerges.

Question 23

Fears in early/ middle childhood:
- common fears
- evolutionary account
- cognitive account

Answer 23

Common Fears
- Imaginary creatures, fear of the dark.
- Fear of small animals.

Evolutionary Account
- Young children begin to explore environment more independently, increasing risk from predators and dangerous environments.
- Fear system evolved to prioritise rapid learning about threats from animals/unknown situations.

Cognitive Account
- Development of magical thinking and poor fantasy-reality distinction may account for fear of monsters.
- Fear of animals/unknown emerges with increased physical mobility and awareness of external environment.

Question 24

Fears in adolescence:
- common fears
- evolutionary account
- cognitive account

Answer 24

Common Fears
- Social fears and evaluation.
- Fear of injury (physical/mental) to self.
- More generalised worry.

Evolutionary Account
- Social position within a group may mean difference between survival or not.
- Fear system evolved to prioritise rapid learning about threats in the social world.

Cognitive Account
- Abstract thinking and understanding of cause-effect broadens range of fear-provoking stimuli and allows more cognitive features of fear to emerge.
- Increased egocentrism leads to sensitisation to evaluations/insults to self.

Question 25

Muris, Merckelbach, Meesters & Van den Brand, (2002)
Method

Answer 25

• N = 248 children aged 3-14 years
• Measured main worry using interview and ability to catastrophise (worry about a topic)
• Cognitive maturation measured using Piagetian conservation tasks

Question 26

Muris, Merckelbach, Meesters & Van den Brand, (2002)
Results

Answer 26

Theres a correlation between the child’s age/ development and their ability to worry and show fear

.60- as a child gets older and has greater cognitive development, they have greater elaboration of worries

.17- increased age cognitive development leads to increased worry

Increased age and cognitive maturation lead to enhanced ability to elaborate on worries, in turn increasing risk for emergence of personal worry.

Worry becomes more common with increased age and greater cognitive maturation

Until children have a certain level of cognitive maturation, fear won’t emerge

Question 27

The evolutionary case for snake and spider fear
- what age do infants demonstrate a fear of snakes and spiders
- where are these seen
- what do infant responses fit with?

Answer 27

Between 8-10 months, evolutionary accounts argue that infants demonstrate negative responses and rapid detection indicative of innate fear of snakes and spiders.
- Negative responses are universal across cultures.
- Seen across a variety of nonhuman animals.

Infant responses fit with evolutionary explanations about adaptive significance of avoiding animals that might threaten their survival.

Question 28

Fear of snakes and spiders in support of evolutionary accounts

Answer 28

Infants form faster associations between snakes and fearful stimuli than between snakes and happy stimuli:

— E.g. 16-month-olds look longer at a snake video than a video of another animal (paired side-by-side) while listening to a fearful voice but not happy voice.

— E.g. 11-month-old girls learn to associate snake images with fear emoticons but don’t learn same associations between control images and happy/fear emoticons

Question 29

Findings for infants attention towards snakes and spiders compared to control images

Answer 29

Using visual search tasks- infants asked to find a particular image amongst other images

Infants rapidly detect and show greater attention to snakes and spiders than to control images e.g. flowers, mushrooms:
— E.g. 9-12 month olds turn more quickly to look at snakes than flowers when images presented side by side
— E.g. 3-5 year olds find a snake/spider target more rapidly among a matrix of control distractors compared to finding a different target (e.g. a frog)

Question 30

Are biased perceptual responses to snakes and spiders really indicative of fear?

Answer 30

• No corroborating behavioural evidence of fear (LoBue & Rakison, 2013):
  — They don’t avoid looking at videos of snakes relative to other animals.
  — They are not more reticent to touch images of snakes/spiders.
  — Parents report child fear but does this reflect parents’ attitudes and not children’s emotions?
• Some studies suggest young children display evidence that they like snakes/spiders:
  — Spend more time interacting with live animals than novel toys during free play session (LoBue et al., 2013).
  — Attempt to “pick up” moving snake images when on a screen.

Question 31

Or is it a perceptual bias?

Answer 31

• Rather than fear snakes/spiders may hold a ‘special status’ – they capture attention rapidly and this may then allow rapid learning of fear (LoBue & Adolph, 2019).
• Don’t need fear for this to happen - low level perceptual features of snakes will capture attention:
  — Children show greater/faster attention to coiled lines or curvilinear shapes which are ‘snake-shaped’ (LoBue, 2014).
  — If snake images are uncoiled or just the snake face is shown then attention is no different compared to other stimuli (LoBue & DeLoache, 2011).
• Young infants may have evolved a ‘perceptual template’ which allows them to rapidly detect/attend to things that have shape/movement characteristics typical of snakes/spiders.

Question 32

Rapid detection mechanism – perceptual template
Rakison & Derringer (2007):
Method

Answer 32

• Looked at whether 5-month-old infants possess a perceptual template which specifies a mental representation of a spider’s basic shape and configuration.
• Measured attention by measuring visual fixation (how long infants spent looking at) to: schematic spider, reconfigured features, completely scrambled
• If infants have a perceptual template, then they should look longer at the ‘real’ spider than the reconfigured/scrambled spider.

Question 33

Rapid detection mechanism – perceptual template
Rakison & Derringer (2007):
Results

Answer 33

Infants looked longer at the schematic spider (the one that looked like a spider) than the reconfigured and scrambled spider – consistent with possession of an innate perceptual template.

No significant difference in visual fixation times when spider images did not contain typical curvilinear body and leg shape.

Suggests perceptual template specifies the structure of spiders e.g. curved body and legs.

Question 34

Is snake/spider fear innate?
Or are snake/spider fears prepared?

Answer 34

Is snake/spider fear innate?
- Unlikely – no behavioural evidence of fear in infants.
- How can we explain unlearning of fears for most people?

Or are snake/spider fears prepared?
Possibly – rapid detection of snake/spider-like stimuli in very young infants is not inconsistent with prepared learning view.

— If we attend to them rapidly then gives an opportunity to learn to fear them quickly.
— But threat is not necessary for rapid detection.