Selective associations in the observational conditioning of fear in rhesus monkeys.

Abstract

Three experiments explored the issue of selective associations in the observational conditioning of fear. Experiment 1 results indicated that observer rhesus monkeys acquired a fear of snakes through watching videotapes of model monkeys behaving fearfully with snakes. In Experiment 2, observers watched edited videotapes that showed models reacting either fearfully to toy snakes and nonfearfully to artificial flowers (SN+/FL-) or vice versa (FL+/SN-). SN+/FL-observers acquired a fear of snakes but not of flowers; FL+/SN-observers did not acquire a fear of either stimulus. In Experiment 3, monkeys solved complex appetitive discriminative (PAN) problems at comparable rates regardless of whether the discriminative stimuli were the videotaped snake or the flower stimuli used in Experiment 2. Thus, monkeys appear to selectively associate snakes with fear.

Stimulus fear-relevance and the vicarious learning pathway to childhood fears.

“…These systems are relatively independent from each other and there is often little correlation between measures of each index. The current study used self-report measures, whereas monkey (Cook & Mineka, 1989, 1990) and toddler (Dubi et al, 2008) studies have usually observed fear-related behaviour, and human conditioning studies have typically used physiological responses or self-report (e.g. Öhman & Soares, 1998).…”

“…Aside from fear-relevance, other characteristics of the CS may affect comparisons with studies such as those with monkeys (Cook & Mineka, 1989, 1990. Fear for stimuli is associated with perceptions of speediness and suddenness of movement (Bennett-Levy & Marteau, 1984) and young children show a predisposition to associate frightened voices with films of moving snakes, but not with still images of snakes (DeLoache & LoBue, 2009).…”

“…Although nonprimates are known to acquire avoidance behaviour for fear-irrelevant stimuli relatively easily via observational learning (e.g. Del Russo, 1975;Kohn, 1976;Mason & Reidinger, 1982) this learning was found only for fear-relevant stimuli such as snakes and not for fear-irrelevant stimuli such as flowers (Cook & Mineka, 1989, 1990. In contrast, Dubi, Rapee, Emerton, and Schniering (2008) found no significant differences in toddlers' observational learning for fear-relevant (snakes and spiders) and fear-irrelevant (flowers and mushrooms) stimuli using Gerull and Rapee's (2002) modelling procedure.…”

“…A series of studies by Mineka, Cook, and colleagues showed that non-snake-fearful rhesus monkeys can rapidly acquire persistent fear of snakes after exposure to monkeys responding fearfully to snakes (e.g. Cook & Mineka, 1989, 1990Mineka & Cook, 1986, 1993Mineka, Davidson, Cook, & Keir, 1984). Although nonprimates are known to acquire avoidance behaviour for fear-irrelevant stimuli relatively easily via observational learning (e.g.…”

The importance of heritability in psychological research: The case of attitudes.

“…Indeed, there are probably more snake phobics among us than automobile phobics in spite of the fact that more people are killed by automobiles than snakes. (See M. Cook & Mineka, 1990, for work showing a built-in propensity for fear of snakes among rhesus monkeys.) My own position is not that extreme.…”