Effects of verbal information on fear-related reasoning biases in children.
The present study made an attempt to induce fear-related reasoning biases by providing children with negative information about a novel stimulus. For this purpose, non-clinical children aged 9-12 years (N=318) were shown a picture of an unknown animal for which they received either negative, ambiguous, positive, or no information. Then children completed a series of tests for measuring various types of reasoning biases (i.e., confirmation bias and covariation bias) in relation to this animal. Results indicated that children in the negative and, to a lesser extent, the ambiguous information groups displayed higher scores on tests of fear-related reasoning biases than children in the positive and no information groups. Altogether, these results support the idea that learning via negatively tinted information plays a role in the development of fear-related cognitive distortions in youths.
Muris
Peter
P
Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. muris@fsw.eur.nl
Rassin
Eric
E
Mayer
Birgit
B
Smeets
Guus
G
Huijding
Jorg
J
Remmerswaal
Daniëlle
D
Field
Andy
A
D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*