Learning to Fear in Childhood: Evidence from Experimental Studies

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Identifying the specific mechanisms by which children socially acquire fear from others is critical for improving strategies aimed at preventing childhood anxiety disorders (Fisak & Grills-Taquechel, 2007). This symposium brings together the latest evidence from recent experimental designs examining two main mechanisms of child fear acquisition from others: verbal information provided by parents (Paper 1 and 2) and observational learning (Paper 3). The first paper examines the role of parents’ verbal statements in the social transmission of social fear from parents to children. Findings suggest that positive and negative statements partially account for the social transmission of social fear from parents to children, and that changes in children’s social fear impact children’s subsequent socially anxious thoughts and behaviors. The second paper examines the effects of parents’ verbal information provision involving threat and safety cues on child fear acquisition using a multi-method design incorporating physiology, cognition, affect, behavior. The study reveals a causal influence of parents’ verbal threat instructions on children’s social fear beliefs. The third paper presents findings from two experimental studies examining the roles of children’s empathy and trust of others on observational fear learning. The first study shows that children’s trait- and state-empathy predict greater fear learning. The second study suggests that children’s beliefs about the trustworthiness of the person displaying the fear response affect vicarious fear learning. The symposium will end with a discussion of the implications of findings, and the value of addressing social transmission of fear and anxiety in family-based prevention and intervention strategies.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Selin Zeytinoglu, University of Maryland - College Park

Discussant

• Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Individual Presentations

• Transmission of Social Fear Through Mother-Child Conversations: Implications for Peer Avoidance and Interpretation Bias - Presenting Author: Selin Zeytinoglu, University of Maryland - College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Santiago Morales, University of Southern California; Non-Presenting Author: Lauren White, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Non-Presenting Author: Daniel S. Pine, National Institutes of Health; Non-Presenting Author: Nathan A Fox, University of Maryland - College Park

• Parent-to-Child Transmission of Stranger Anxiety via Verbal Information: The Role of Infant Temperament - Presenting Author: Evin Aktar, Leiden University; Non-Presenting Author: Cosima Nimphy, Universiteit Leiden; Non-Presenting Author: Bram Van Bockstaele, University of Western Australia; Non-Presenting Author: Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Children’s Empathy and Trust Affect Observational Fear Learning from Others - Presenting Author: Chris Askew, University of Surrey; Non-Presenting Author: Gemma Reynolds, Middlesex University; Non-Presenting Author: Molly O’Connor, University of Surrey