title: Learning to fear a second-order stimulus following vicarious learning.
abstract: Vicarious fear learning refers to the acquisition of fear via observation of the fearful responses of others. The present study aims to extend current knowledge by exploring whether second-order vicarious fear learning can be demonstrated in children. That is, whether vicariously learnt fear responses for one stimulus can be elicited in a second stimulus associated with that initial stimulus. Results demonstrated that children's (5-11 years) fear responses for marsupials and caterpillars increased when they were seen with fearful faces compared to no faces. Additionally, the results indicated a second-order effect in which fear-related learning occurred for other animals seen together with the fear-paired animal, even though the animals were never observed with fearful faces themselves. Overall, the findings indicate that for children in this age group vicariously learnt fear-related responses for one stimulus can subsequently be observed for a second stimulus without it being experienced in a fear-related vicarious learning event. These findings may help to explain why some individuals do not recall involvement of a traumatic learning episode in the development of their fear of a specific stimulus.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Kingston University , Kingston-upon-Thames , Surrey , UK.
authors.forename: Gemma
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Reynolds
authors.affiliation: b School of Psychology , University of Sussex , Brighton , UK.
authors.forename: Andy P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Field
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , Kingston University , Kingston-upon-Thames , Surrey , UK.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Askew
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation
keywords: Childhood anxiety; fear learning; observational learning; second-order conditioning; vicarious learning