“I’m Not Really Afraid of Osama Bin Laden!” Fear of Terrorism in Dutch Children

We examined to what extent children in The Netherlands are affected by the threat of terrorism. For this purpose, a sample of school children living in Rotterdam or adjacent satellites (N = 216) completed a fear survey that included a number of terrorism-related items, and were confronted with ambiguous vignettes to measure threat-related interpretation bias. The results demonstrated that although a number of terrorism-related items (i.e., bombing attacks, explosions in a bus or subway) listed high in a ranking of most intense childhood fears, very few children made terrorist-related interpretations of ambiguous situations.     

The Koala Fear Questionnaire: Its Relationship with Fear of Storms and Hurricanes in 4- to 14-Year-Old Antillean Children

The present study further investigated the reliability and validity of the recently developed Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ) in a large sample of 4- to 14-year-old school children (N = 378) who lived on Sint-Maarten, The Netherlands Antilles. The results confirmed that the KFQ is a reliable scale with good internal consistency. Furthermore, evidence was obtained for the concurrent validity of the scale. That is, KFQ scores were substantially correlated with a highly relevant fear of the children on Sint-Maarten, namely fear of storms and hurricanes. Finally, psychometric properties in the younger children of our sample were highly similar to those obtained in older children. Altogether, these findings provide further support for the notion that the KFQ is a reliable and valid scale for assessing fears and fearfulness in children aged 4 years and above.     

Fear of the beast: a prospective study on the effects of negative information on childhood fear

The current study examined the effects of negative information on the enhancement of childhood fear. A large group of normal primary school children aged between 4 and 12 years (N=285) received either negative or positive information about an unknown, doglike animal, called 'the beast'. Children's fears were assessed at three points in time: before, directly after, and one week after the information about the beast was provided (i.e., pre-, post- and follow-up assessment). Results showed that type of information changed children's fear of the beast in the predicted direction with negative information increasing fear levels and positive information decreasing fear levels. This was not only the case directly after the experimental manipulation but also at one week follow-up. Furthermore, fear of the beast appeared to generalize, that is, children who became more fearful of the beast after receiving negative information, also became more apprehensive of other dogs and predators.     

Fear and Courage in Children: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

This study further investigated the construct of courage in children. Children aged 8–13 years (n = 51) were interviewed about the most courageous action that they had ever performed during their life, and to retrospectively rate their level of fear and courage experienced during that event. On a separate occasion, children also completed the Courage Measure for Children (CM-C) as an index of children’s general level of personal courage, as well as scales for assessing anxiety symptoms and sensation seeking. Results indicated that almost all children (i.e., 94%) indicated that they had carried out a courageous action at some point during their life, although the levels of fear and courage associated with these acts varied considerably. Further, there was no relation between fear and courage reported for the courageous action, but these variables were significantly correlated with respectively anxiety symptoms and personal courage as indexed by the CM-C. Finally, a significant positive correlation was observed between sensation seeking and personal courage, indicating that children who are more thrill and adventure seeking are generally also more courageous. It is concluded that fear and courage in children are largely unrelated and not just two sides of the same coin. The implications of these results for the etiology and treatment of childhood anxiety problems are discussed.     

The etiology of specific fears and phobias in children: a critique of the non-associative account

The non-associative account of phobic etiology assumes that a number of specific fears (e.g., fear of heights, water, spiders, strangers, and separation) have an evolutionary background and may occur in the absence of learning experiences (e.g., conditioning). By this view, these specific fears pertain to stimuli that once posed a challenge to the survival of our prehistoric ancestors. Accordingly, they would emerge spontaneously during the course of normal development and only in a minority of individuals, these specific fears would persist into adulthood. While the non-associative approach has generated interesting findings, several critical points can be raised. First, it capitalizes on negative findings, i.e., the failure to document learning experiences (e.g., conditioning, modeling) in the history of phobic children. Second, it largely ignores factors that have been found to be crucial for the acquisition of early childhood fears (e.g., the developmental level of the child, stimulus characteristics such as novelty, aversiveness, and unpredictability, and early experience with uncontrollable events). As an alternative to the non-associative account, we briefly describe a multifactorial model of childhood fears and phobias.     

Empirical fear profiles among American youth

Fears among children can range from relatively innocuous fears of simple objects to significant phobias that affect youths' everyday functioning in the home, school, or community environments. This study investigated empirically derived fear profiles among American youth ages 7-19 (N=556). Based upon youths' scores on the 5 factors of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-II (FSSC-II; Burnham & Gullone (Behav Res Ther, 35, 1997)), multistage Euclidean grouping was applied and produced 5 replicable fear cluster profiles with unique contours. Logistic regression odds ratios revealed specific associations of profile group membership with demographic characteristics such as child age, sex, and ethnicity.     

The Koala Fear Questionnaire: a standardized self-report scale for assessing fears and fearfulness in pre-school and primary school children

The Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ) is a standardized self-report scale for assessing fears and fearfulness in children aged between 4 and 12 years. The current article presents six studies which examined the reliability and validity of the KFQ. Study 1 (N=108) demonstrated that the visual fear scales of Koala bears as employed in the KFQ are highly comparable to the standard 3-point scales that are used in other childhood fear measures. Study 2 (N=163) provided support for the convergent validity of the KFQ in a sample of 8- to 14-year-old children. That is, the scale correlated substantially with alternative measures of childhood fear and anxiety. Study 3 (N=189) showed that the KFQ possesses good internal consistency and test-retest stability in a group of 8- to 11-year-old children. The results of Studies 4 (N=129) and 5 (N=176) indicated that the KFQ is suitable for children aged 4 to 6 years and demonstrated that the psychometric properties of the scale in younger children are highly similar to those obtained in older children. Study 6 (N=926) showed that the factor structure of the KFQ was theoretically meaningful: although the data clearly pointed in the direction of one factor of general fearfulness, spurs of the commonly found five-factor solution of childhood fear were found in the KFQ. Altogether, the KFQ seems to be a valuable addition to the instrumentarium of clinicians and researchers who are working with fearful and anxious children.     

What is the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children measuring?

The Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R) is a widely used self-report questionnaire that purports to measure the number of fears and the overall level of fearfulness in children. A number of studies have shown that the ten most common childhood fears can be found on the Danger and Death subscale of the FSSC-R, with upwards of 50% of children endorsing such fears. However, some researchers (e.g., H. McCathie & S.H. Spence, 1991; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29, 495-502) have questioned the validity of these findings, suggesting that these items do not reflect actual childhood fears that children have or experience on a daily or regular basis. Rather, they suggest that children are responding to these fear items as if they were actually occurring to them in the here and now. The current study examined the occurrence of five Danger and Death fears from the FSSC-R (i.e., "Not being able to breathe", "Being hit by a car or truck", "Falling from high places", "Bombing attacks or being invaded", and "Fire or getting burned") in a sample of normal school children aged eight to 12 years (N=102). More specifically, we used three different methods to asses these fears: (1). prevalence as determined by the standard FSSC-R procedure, (2). prevalence as determined by a fear list procedure, and (3). actual occurrence or prevalence of these fears in the past week, as determined by a diary method. Results indicated that while these fears ranked high when using the standard FSSC-R procedure, they were considerably less common when using the fear list procedure, and had a low probability of actual occurrence on a daily basis, as well as possessing a short duration and low intensity. Implications for the assessment of fears and the use of self-report measures like the FSSC-R are briefly discussed.     

Peritraumatic dissociation and PTSD severity: do event-related fears about death and control mediate their relation?

Relations among peritraumatic dissociation, PTSD severity, event-related fear (i.e. fear experienced during traumatic event) about death, and event-related fear about losing control were examined in the current study. Particular emphasis was placed on testing whether or not fears about death and losing control mediate the relation between peritraumatic dissociation and PTSD severity in a sample of 146 nontreatment-seeking university women. Results indicated that event-related fears about death and losing control accounted for the relation between peritraumatic dissociation and PTSD severity; that is, the effect of peritraumatic dissociation on PTSD severity was eliminated after controlling for these fears. Speculations about findings are discussed.     

Examining Race/Ethnicity and Fears of Children and Adolescents in the United States: Differences Between White,African American,and Hispanic Populations

The American Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC‐AM; J. J. Burnham, 1995, 2005) has been used to measure fears of children and adolescents. The FSSC‐AM is based on the 2nd revision of a psychometrically sound and well‐known fear scale (i.e., FSSC‐II; E. Gullone & N. J. King, 1992). In this study, age and gender differences, fear intensity scores, and fear prevalence scores were analyzed across race/ethnicity (i.e., White, African American, and Hispanic populations). Multivariate analyses of variance yielded significant effects for race/ethnicity.     

Spider fear and covariation bias in children and adolescents

Covariation bias can be defined as phobic people's tendency to overestimate the association between fear-relevant stimuli and negative outcomes. The current article presents two studies that examined this type of cognitive bias in children and adolescents aged 8-16 years. Study 1 was concerned with a thought experiment during which youths (N=150) were asked to imagine that they participated in an experiment during which they had to view a series of pictures showing spiders, guns, and flowers, that were occasionally followed by a negative outcome (i.e., a mild electric shock). Participants were asked to estimate the relation between each type of picture and the negative outcome. The results indicated that youths with higher levels of spider fear displayed a specific tendency to relate spider pictures to a negative outcome. In Study 2, youths (N=220) actually participated in a computer game during which they were confronted with pictures of spiders, guns, and flowers, each of which was equally often followed by a negative (i.e., losing candy), positive (i.e., winning candy), or neutral outcome. After the game, participants had to estimate the relation between each type of picture and various outcomes. It was found that youths with higher levels of spider fear estimated more negative and less positive outcomes in relation to spider pictures. Taken together, these findings provide support for a fear-related covariation bias in youths. Further developmental analyses indicated that this type of cognitive bias seems to be more consistently present among adolescents than among children.     

The connection between cognitive development and specific fears and worries in normal children and children with below-average intellectual abilities: a preliminary study.

The present study explored the relationship between cognitive development and anxiety phenomena in 4-12-year-old children. Fears and worries of normal children (n=176) were compared to those of children with below-average intellectual abilities (children with BAIA; n=105). We evaluated to what extent level of cognitive development as indexed by a Piagetian conservation task was associated with the presence of fears and worries. While normal children and children with BAIA did not differ with regard to the content of their fears and worries, normal children more frequently reported such anxiety phenomena during the semi-structured Anxiety Interview than did children with BAIA. Furthermore, in normal children, evidence was found to suggest that level of cognitive development contributes to the experience of fears and worries. That is, anxiety phenomena were more prevalent among those children who passed a Piagetian conservation task. However, when anxiety phenomena were assessed by means of the Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ), a different picture emerged. KFQ data suggested that fears were less frequent in normal children and those children with BAIA who had a higher level of cognitive functioning. Apparently, the Anxiety Interview and the KFQ tap quite different aspects of anxiety. The KFQ seems to measure primitive fears that are likely to be prevalent among children with limited cognitive capacity, whereas the Anxiety Interview assesses more sophisticated anxiety phenomena that probably depend on high levels of cognitive functioning.     

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wind? Origins of Severe Weather Phobia

Natural Environment phobia include fears cued by events such as severe weather. Given the limited research in this area, the present study sought to assess the prevalence and learning history origins of these fears, as well as their relation to anxiety sensitivity (AS). Study One participants included 533 (66%F) undergraduates who completed the Weather Experiences Questionnaire. Overall, 42?% reported exposure to a severe weather event (e.g., hurricanes); 16?% reported high- and 44?% low-fear about weather. Thirty-three from each group participated in Study Two, wherein one high-fear participant approximated the diagnostic criteria for severe weather phobia. High-fear participants cited direct conditioning (43?%) followed by vicarious conditioning (39?%) as the most common learning pathways. The remaining18% could not recall the source of their fear and none identified operant conditioning. One-third cited mothers (versus 8?% fathers) as sharing similar fears. Most had not witnessed parents hurt, frightened, or distressed by severe weather but claimed parents had warned them about severe weather. High- (vs. low-) fear participants revealed more AS-somatic versus AS-cognitive or AS-social concerns. The importance of such research in light of the increasing frequency of severe weather events is discussed.     

Screening for trauma in children and adolescents: the validity of the Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale of the screen for child anxiety related emotional disorders

Examined the validity of the Traumatic Stress Disorder scale of the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), a recently developed self-report questionnaire measuring Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) defined anxiety disorders symptoms in children. A large sample of normal schoolchildren (N = 996) ages 7 to 19 years completed the SCARED. Children who scored high on the SCARED Traumatic Stress Disorder scale (i.e., trauma group; n = 43) and children who scored low on this scale (i.e., control group; n = 43) were then interviewed about their most aversive life event. In addition, children completed self-report questionnaires of traumatic experiences and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology. Results showed that children in the trauma group more frequently reported life events that independent judges considered to be 'potentially traumatic' than did control children. Furthermore, children in the trauma group reported having experienced more traumatic incidents and had higher scores on PTSD-related questionnaires compared with control children. Moreover, trauma group children more frequently fulfilled DSM-IV criteria for PTSD than did control children. The results of this study support the validity of the Traumatic Stress Disorder scale of the SCARED.     

The influence of animal fear on attentional capture by fear-relevant animal stimuli in children

The present study demonstrated that pictures of fear-relevant animals, snakes and spiders, presented among backgrounds of other animal stimuli captured attention and interfered in the detection of a neutral target to the same extent in a large sample of unselected children (N=81). Moreover, detection of a neutral target animal was slowed more in the presence of a feared fear-relevant distracter, e.g., a snake for snake fearful children, than in the presence of a not feared fear-relevant distracter, e.g., a spider for snake fearful children. These results indicate attentional capture by phylogenetically fear-relevant animal stimuli in children and the selective enhancement of this effect by fear of these animals. These findings are consistent with current models of preferential processing of phylogenetically prepared threat stimuli and with cognitive models of anxiety that propose an enhancing effect of fear in the processing of fear-related stimuli.     

Fear information and social phobic beliefs in children: a prospective paradigm and preliminary results

This paper presents a first attempt to develop a prospective paradigm to test Rachman's (Behav. Res. Ther. 15 (1977) 375) theory of fear acquisition for social fears. Following the prospective paradigm for animal fears developed by Field et al. (Behav. Res. Ther. 39 (2001) 1259) an attempt is made to adapt this paradigm to look at the effect of fear information in the development of social fears. A large group of normal children (N=135) who were at an age (10-13 years) at which social concerns are most pertinent were tested using this paradigm. They were given positive, negative or neutral information about three social situations: public speaking, eating in public, and meeting a new group of children. Children's fear beliefs were measured before and after the information was given and the information was given by a teacher, a same age peer or no information was given (a control). The results indicate that although information can change social fear beliefs it is dependent upon the type of social activity and who provides the information. The implications of these initial results for our understanding of both the role of fear information in the development of social fear beliefs, and the limitations of this current paradigm are discussed.     

Mom told me scary things about this animal: Parents installing fear beliefs in their children via the verbal information pathway

This study investigated whether fear beliefs can be installed in children after parents had received negatively tinted information about a novel stimulus. Parents of children aged 8-13 years (N = 88) were presented with negative, positive, or ambiguous information about an unknown animal and then given a number of open-ended vignettes describing confrontations with the animal with the instruction to tell their children what would happen in these situations. Results indicated that children's fear beliefs were influenced by the information that was provided to the parent. That is, parents who had received negative information provided more threatening narratives about the animal and hence installed higher levels of fear beliefs in their children than parents who had received positive information. In the case of ambiguous information, the transmission of fear was dependent on parents' trait anxiety levels. More precisely, high trait anxious parents told more negative stories about the unknown animal, which produced higher fear levels in children.     

Fear and positive affectivity in infancy: convergence/discrepancy between parent-report and laboratory-based indicators

This study examined convergence between indicators of infant temperament derived via parent-report and those obtained in the context of structured laboratory observations. Discrepancies between scores resulting from these methodological approaches were examined in an attempt to explain these differences by considering multiple reporter (i.e., parent) characteristics. Convergence between the two sources of information was hypothesized; however, discrepancies were also expected. This study was aimed at examining whether increased maternal depression and low parenting self-efficacy were related to higher levels of infant fear and decreased positive affectivity, as reported by mothers, relative to the scores derived from the laboratory procedure. Results indicated that the fear scores based on parent-report and structured observations, respectively, were significantly correlated; however, the correlation for smiling and laughter scores did not reach statistical significance. Furthermore, parents higher in negative affect reported a higher level of fear for their infants, relative to the results of the laboratory observation.     

S-R associations, their extinction, and recovery in an animal model of anxiety: a new associative account of phobias without recall of original trauma

Associative accounts of the etiology of phobias have been criticized because of numerous cases of phobias in which the client does not remember a relevant traumatic event (i.e., Pavlovian conditioning trial), instructions, or vicarious experience with the phobic object. In three lick suppression experiments with rats as subjects, we modeled an associative account of such fears. Experiment 1 assessed stimulus-response (S-R) associations in first-order fear conditioning. After behaviorally complete devaluation of the unconditioned stimulus, the target stimulus still produced strong conditioned responses, suggesting that an S-R association had been formed and that this association was not significantly affected when the outcome was devalued through unsignaled presentations of the unconditioned stimulus. Experiments 2 and 3 examined extinction and recovery of S-R associations. Experiment 2 showed that extinguished S-R associations returned when testing occurred outside of the extinction context (i.e., renewal) and Experiment 3 found that a long delay between extinction and testing also produced a return of the extinguished S-R associations (i.e., spontaneous recovery). These experiments suggest that fears for which people cannot recall a cause are explicable in an associative framework, and indicate that those fears are susceptible to relapse after extinction treatment just like stimulus-outcome (S-O) associations.     

A dirty animal is a scary animal! Effects of disgust-related information on fear beliefs in children

The present study investigated whether disgust-valenced information has an impact on children's fear beliefs about animals. Non-clinical children aged between 9 and 13 years (n=159) were presented with disgust-related and cleanliness-related information about unknown animals (Australian marsupials). Before and after information, beliefs of disgust and fear regarding the animals were assessed. Results showed that disgust-related information not only induced higher levels of disgust but also increased children's fear beliefs in relation to these animals. The other way around, cleanliness-related information decreased levels of disgust and resulted in lower levels of fear. The implications for the role of disgust in the development of animal fear are briefly discussed.