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Citation |
Field AP, Lawson J, Banerjee R. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 2008; 117(1): 214-224. |
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Affiliation |
Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9QH, UK. andyf@sussex.ac.uk |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2008, American Psychological Association) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
18266499 |
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Abstract |
Verbal information has long been assumed to be an indirect pathway to fear. Children (aged 6-8 or 12-13 years) were exposed to threat, positive, or no information about 3 novel animals to see the long-term impact on their fear cognitions and the immediate impact on avoidance behavior. Their directly (self-report) and indirectly (implicit association task) measured attitudes toward the animals changed congruent with the information provided, and the changes persisted up to 6 months later. Verbal threat information also induced behavioral avoidance of the animal. Younger children formed stronger animal- threat and animal-safe associations because of threat and positive verbal information than older children, but there were negligible age effects on self-reported fear beliefs and avoidance behaviors. These results support theories of fear acquisition that suppose that verbal information affects components of the fear emotion. Language: en |