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What Happens When Verbal Threat Information and Vicarious Learning Combine?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2008

Chris Askew ,
Hannah Kessock-Philip  and
Andy P. Field
Chris Askew
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Hannah Kessock-Philip
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Andy P. Field*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
*
Reprint requests to Andy Field, Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 6GQ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Recent research has shown that the verbal information and vicarious learning pathways to fear create long term fear cognitions and can create cognitive biases and avoidance in children. However, it is unlikely that these pathways operate in isolation in the aetiology of childhood fear and the interaction between these pathways is untested. Three preliminary experiments are reported that explore the combined effect of verbal threat information and vicarious learning on self-reported fear beliefs in 7–9-year-old children. Results showed that prior negative information significantly facilitated the effect of negative vicarious learning on children's fear beliefs (Experiment 1); however, there was not a significant combined effect of verbal threat information and vicarious learning when they the information was presented during (Experiment 2) or after (Experiment 3) vicarious learning. These results support the idea that verbal information can affect CS-US associations formed in subsequent vicarious learning events, but contradict the proposal that it can change fear beliefs already acquired through vicarious learning by changing how a person evaluates the vicarious learning episode.

Keywords

Fearanxietyverbal informationvicarious learningchildren
Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 36 , Issue 4: Anxiety of Childhood and Adolescence , July 2008 , pp. 491 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2008

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