The behavioral inhibition system and the verbal information pathway to children's fears.

Abstract

The behavioral inhibition system (BIS) is the neurological substrate of trait anxiety and is linked to the development of anxiety disorders. Three experiments are reported that investigate the moderating influence of the BIS on one pathway to fear: threat information. In all studies, children were given verbal information about a set of novel animals and their BIS sensitivity was measured. The results suggest that BIS sensitivity (1) facilitates attentional biases to stimuli associated with threat information; and (2) facilitates behavioral avoidance of novel stimuli associated with threat information. This suggests a possible mechanism through which the behavioral inhibition system may promote the acquisition of animal fears. 3The Behavioral Inhibition System and the Verbal Information Pathway to Children's Fears Rachman (1977) proposed that fears could be acquired through three pathways: direct negative conditioning experiences, learning through observing others, and fear transmitted through verbal information. Retrospective studies have shown support for all three pathways (see King, Gullone & Ollendick, 1998;Merckelbach, De Jong, Muris & van den Hout, 1996 for reviews), however, the information pathway remains the least experimentally studied. AlthoughRachman did not formalize a mechanism through which fear information would have an effect, modern theories of fear development are intrinsically linked to the verbal information pathway.Davey (1997) has pointed out that there are two roles for moderating factors in conditioning models of fear acquisition. The first is through creating expectancies about the likely outcome of an encounter with a conditioned stimulus, CS (expectancy evaluations). The second is through moderating the aversiveness of the unconditioned stimulus (US) or US representation (US Revaluation processes). Threat information could affect both processes by (1) creating expectancies or beliefs about likely outcomes of subsequent conditioning episodes and (2) by revaluing a previously innocuous experience such that its mental representation comes to act as a negative US. In terms of expectancy evaluations, Davey (1997) noted a body of conditioning research suggesting that the core CS-US association driving acquired fear responses in humans is influenced by existing beliefs about the likely outcome of interacting with the CS. For example, a child believing that a dog will bite her who is subsequently bitten will have a stronger dogtrauma association than a child for whom the bite conflicts with their prior assumptions (see Field, in press).Although retrospective studies have shown that threat information contributes to the development of fears, these reports will be prone to memory bias and forgetting of potentially important learning episodes (see King, Gullone & Ollendick, 1998;Merckelbach, De Jong, Muris & Van den Hout, 1996 for reviews). Field, Argyris & Knowles (2001) have developed an experimental paradigm for looking at the effects of fear information in the development of ani...

Maternal Modeling and the Acquisition of Fear and Avoidance in Toddlers: Influence of Stimulus Preparedness and Child Temperament

“…Whereas children's self-reported fear beliefs increased significantly as a result of verbal information, the increase of fear beliefs was not significant when the information was given via video which showed an adult female acting fearfully/avoidant towards the novel toy monster. Other studies have also shown that verbal threat information has a highly significant effect on children's fear beliefs about and avoidance of novel animals and social situations (Field 2006;Field and Lawson 2003;Muris et al 2003). In a recent study by Askew and Field (2007) children's fear beliefs (selfreported and indirectly measured with affective priming) increased for novel animals paired with scared faces.…”

Vicarious learning of children’s social-anxiety-related fear beliefs and emotional Stroop bias.

“…The scale consists of seven items (two reverse scored) that children respond to on a four-point Likert-type scale (scored here: 0-not at all; 1-not really; 2-sometimes; 3-always) and produces a 0 to 21 score of the tendency to approach or withdraw from unfamiliar situations. This modified version of the scale was found by Field (2006) to have high reliability (α = .68) and good correspondence with measures of anxiety in 7 to 10 year olds. Example items are "I feel pretty worried or upset when I think or know someone is angry at me" and "Getting told off upsets me".…”

“…Inhibition Scale (CW-BIS) adapted for children by Field (2006) was used to measure behavioral inhibition. The scale consists of seven items (two reverse scored) that children respond to on a four-point Likert-type scale (scored here: 0-not at all; 1-not really; 2-sometimes; 3-always) and produces a 0 to 21 score of the tendency to approach or withdraw from unfamiliar situations.…”

Temperamental Factors Associated with the Acquisition of Information Processing Biases and Anxiety

“…In a study looking at fear acquisition and fear behaviour in children, children scoring high on the child version of Carver and White's (1994) BI System scale showed facilitated attention bias towards newly acquired threatening information (Field, 2006). Children high in the temperament construct negative affect coupled with low effortful control (an interaction discussed in detail later in this chapter) also showed increased attention bias towards threat in a dot-probe task (Lonigan and Vasey, 2009).…”

“…For this reason, maternal behaviour and personality may play a particularly important role in exacerbating or diminishing specific processing biases of a behaviourally inhibited child. A child's experience plays a significant role in how he or she processes threat (LoBue, in press), with anxious children showing facilitation in threat learning (Fulcher, Mathews and Hammerl, 2008) and facilitated attention bias towards recently acquired threat information (Field, 2006). Thus, the experiences that children are exposed to in their childcare environment likely influence how they perceive, weigh and process threat (see Hadwin, Garner and Perez-Olivas, 2006 for a review).…”