Our Research Interests

How Do Children Acquire Fears?

We have been exploring the role of childhood experience in fear acquisition (see Askew & Field, 2008; Field & Davey, 2001; Dadds, Davey & Field, 2001). The main questions that we have been addressing are:

  1. Are children affected by what they hear about new stimuli and situations? We have shown that even small vignettes containing threat information about a new animal or situation can lead to changes in their fear beliefs that last up to 6-months (e.g. Field, Argyris & Knowles, 2001; Field, Hamilton, Knowles & Plews, 2003; Field & Lawson, 2003; Field, Lawson & Banerjee, 2008; Lawson, Banerjee & Field, 2007). Such information also affects a child's willingness to approach an animal, and affects their physiological responses when they believe that they will stroke the animal (Field & Lawson, 2003; Field & Schorah, 2007)
  2. The effects described above are all more prominent in children who are naturally anxious (Field, 2006, JAP; Field & Price-Evans, 2007).
  3. Threat information can also affect children's perceptions of the likelihood of bad things (involving the animal) happening if they were to encounter the animal (Field & Lawson, 2008; Muris, Rassin, Smeets, Mayer, Huijding, Remmerswaal, & Field, 2009). It also makes them pay more attention to these animals than ones that they have not heard threatening things about (Field, 2006, JCCAP).
  4. Younger children (6-8) are believed to be more susceptible to fear experiences involving animals and we have some evidence to support this idea (Field, Lawson & Banerjee, 2008).
  5. A parallel line of research has been in looking into how children learn from watching other people's reactions to novel animals and situations (Askew & Field, 2008). As with verbal information, we have shown that just watching other people's reactions to novel animals is enough to change children's fear beliefs and make them more reluctant to approach these animals (Askew & Field, 2007).
  6. We have also started to look at how different learning experiences interact with each other. We showed, for example, that prior threat information can exacerbate the effect that a surprising encounter with an animal has on children (Field & Storksen-Coulson, 2007).
  7. Recent work has started to look at how anxious children interpret ambiguous verbal information and how this interpretation affects their memory for that information and their subsequent fear beliefs.
  8. I have also started to look at how TV programs affect children's levels of anxiety.

Family Influences on Children's Fears

It is now well-established that the family environment plays an important part in a child's emotional development. However, exactly how the family influence operates is unclear. We currently have several projects looking at the role of the family in children's emotional development. Some of our findings include the following:

  1. Anxious parents are more likely than non anxious parents to interpret ambiguous situations involving their child as being threatening (Lester, Field, Oliver & Cartwright-Hatton, 2009).
  2. Children's own interpretation of ambiguous situations appears to be linked to previous experiences in which their parents have 'taught' them to disambiguate similar situations in a threatening way (Lester, Seal, Nightingale & Field, in press).
  3. The quality of parent-child relationships acts a background against which new verbal threat information is processed. In particular, more negative family environments magnify the effect that threatening information about novel animals has on children's fear beliefs and behaviours (Field, Ball, Kawycz, & Moore, 2007; Price-Evans and Field, 2008).

Funding

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