The DOI matches its Crossref record; 46 of the 46 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The verbal threat information pathway to fear in children: The longitudinal effects on fear cognitions and the immediate effects on avoidance behavior.
Open accessAbstract
Verbal information has long been assumed to be an indirect pathway to fear. Children (aged 6-8 or 12-13 years) were exposed to threat, positive, or no information about 3 novel animals to see the long-term impact on their fear cognitions and the immediate impact on avoidance behavior. Their directly (self-report) and indirectly (implicit association task) measured attitudes toward the animals changed congruent with the information provided, and the changes persisted up to 6 months later. Verbal threat information also induced behavioral avoidance of the animal. Younger children formed stronger animal- threat and animal-safe associations because of threat and positive verbal information than older children, but there were negligible age effects on self-reported fear beliefs and avoidance behaviors. These results support theories of fear acquisition that suppose that verbal information affects components of the fear emotion.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“These tests involve asking the child to approach a feared object or situation and measuring the physical distance from that object or situation, which is used as an estimate of behavioral avoidance (Field et al., 2008; Klein et al., 2011).”
From Child- and Parent-Report Measures of Behavioral Avoidance (CAMS/CAMP): Portuguese Validation in Clinical and Non-Clinical Samples. (2024) · cites this paper as Field et al., 2008
In the citing paper
“Behavioral avoidance tests are the most common method of measuring avoidance.”
From Child- and Parent-Report Measures of Behavioral Avoidance (CAMS/CAMP): Portuguese Validation in Clinical and Non-Clinical Samples. (2024) · cites this paper as Field et al., 2008
Citations
Cites
Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464 · Cited by 9,210
Emotional processing of fear: Exposure to corrective information.
Foa, E. B., & Kozak, M. J. (1986) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.99.1.20 · Cited by 5,396 · cited 1×
“The opportunities for learning through interacting with the object of the verbal threat information (and having disconfirmatory experiences) are therefore decreased (Foa & Kozak, 1986).”
BackgroundFears, phobias, and preparedness: toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning
Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.108.3.483 · Cited by 3,147 · cited 2×
“Öhman and Mineka (2001) have also acknowledged that verbal threat information can determine how individuals appraise their fear and subsequently behave toward a fear-evoking stimulus.”
BackgroundIntroducing Multilevel Modeling
Kreft, I., & de Leeuw, J. (1998) · doi:10.4135/9781849209366 · Cited by 2,997
FREQUENCY ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH USAGE: LEXICON AND GRAMMAR
Francis, W. N., Kučera, H., & Mackie, A. W. (1983) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 2,310
Methods for dealing with reaction time outliers.
Ratcliff, R. (1993) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.114.3.510 · Cited by 2,142 · cited 1×
“…mean reaction times were computed for each child for compatible and incompatible trials, excluding reaction times if they were greater than two standard deviations from the child’s mean (see Ratcliff, 1993) or if the child made an error (i.e., gave the wrong response to the words) on that trial.”
MethodTheoretical Issues in Behavior Therapy
Reiss, S., & Bootzin, R. R. (1985) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,461
The conditioning theory of fearacquisition: A critical examination
Rachman, S. (1977) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(77)90041-9 · Cited by 1,191
Reliability and validity of the revised fear survey schedule for children (FSSC-R)
Ollendick, T. H. (1983) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(83)90087-6 · Cited by 1,013 · cited 4×
“Ollendick, 1983) The FSSC–”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialFear reduction and fear behavior: Problems in treating a construct
Lang, P. J. (1968) · Research in psychotherapy. · doi:10.1037/10546-004 · Cited by 989 · cited 1×
“Lang (1968) famously conceptualized anxiety as three response systems: language behavior, physiological responses, and overt behaviors.”
BackgroundMineka, S., & Zinbarg, R. (2006) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.61.1.10 · Cited by 929 · cited 4×
“The indirect role of verbal threat information is through the influence of these associations on future learning (Mineka & Zinbarg, 1996, 2006).”
BackgroundInfluential(1962) · American Psychological Association eBooks · doi:10.1037/10591-000 · Cited by 717
Liebowitz, M. R. (1985) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1985.01790300097013 · Cited by 576
The Developmental Psychopathology of Anxiety
(2001) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/med:psych/9780195123630.001.0001 · Cited by 479 · cited 2×
“Mineka and Zinbarg (1996, 2006) and Muris and Merckelbach (2001) concurred that social learning and fear information act as a vulnerability factor that affects future learning experiences.”
BackgroundPhobias: A Handbook of Theory, Research and Treatment
Davey, G. C. L., & Leahy, R. L. (2000) · Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy · doi:10.1891/0889-8391.14.1.115 · Cited by 463
(1989) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 451
Age of onset in different phobias.
Öst, L. (1987) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037//0021-843x.96.3.223 · Cited by 435
Ollendick, T. H., King, N. J., & Frary, R. B. (1989) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(89)90115-0 · Cited by 372
Acquisition of phobias and anxiety response patterns in clinical patients
Öst, L., & Hugdahl, K. (1981) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(81)90134-0 · Cited by 294
Westenberg, P. M., Drewes, M. J., Goedhart, A. W., Siebelink, B. M., & Treffers, P. D. A. (2004) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00239.x · Cited by 279
AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES IN CHILDREN'S FEARS
Bauer, D. H. (1976) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00375.x · Cited by 240 · cited 1×
“At 6–8 years old, a child’s normative fears are focused on ghosts and animals; at 10–12 years old, the focus is on self-injury concerns (Bauer, 1976); and in preadolescence and adolescence, it moves to social evaluation (Westenberg, Drewes, Goedhart, Siebelink, & Treffers, 2004).”
BackgroundHouwer, J. D. (2002) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s0005-7916(02)00024-1 · Cited by 237 · cited 2×
“De Houwer (2002) has suggested that the IAT can be usefully interpreted through comparison with real-life behavior, and the BAT showed that, in the short term at least, verbal threat information promoted behavioral avoidance.”
BackgroundInteracting cognitive subsystems: A systemic approach to cognitive-affective interaction and change
Barnard, P. J., & Teasdale, J. D. (1991) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699939108411021 · Cited by 226 · cited 2×
“Propositional meanings are rational concepts and relationships that can be verbalized, whereas implicational meanings combine patterns of information from the outside world and internal states (Barnard & Teasdale, 1991).”
BackgroundField, A. P., & Lawson, J. (2003) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(03)00034-2 · Cited by 223 · cited 7×
“Likewise, prior analyses showed that none of analyses were influenced by the gender of the child (see Field & Lawson, 2003, for an analysis on the younger sample that includes gender as a factor).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationOrigins of childhood fears: An evaluation of Rachman's theory of fear acquisition
Ollendick, T. H., & King, N. J. (1991) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(91)90039-6 · Cited by 220 · cited 1×
“…that verbal threat information is a viable pathway to fear is based on retrospective methodology in which adults with specific phobias assign their fear experiences to one of Rachman’s pathways using the Phobic Origin Questionnaire (Öst & Hugdahl, 1981; see Ollendick & King, 1991, for a review).”
MethodIs conditioning a useful framework for understanding the development and treatment of phobias?
Field, A. P. (2006) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2005.05.010 · Cited by 216
Self-citationField, A. P., Argyris, N. G., & Knowles, K. A. (2001) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(00)00080-2 · Cited by 188 · cited 1×
“In children, Field, Argyris, and Knowles (2001) and Field and Lawson (2003) gave 7- to 9-year-olds verbal threat or positive information about novel monsters or animals.”
BackgroundSelf-citationConditioning and ethological models of anxiety disorders: stress-in-dynamic-context anxiety models.
Mineka, S., & Zinbarg, R. E. (1996) · PubMed · Cited by 154
Depression in British and American children and its relation to anxiety and fear
Ollendick, T. H., & Yule, W. (1990) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-006x.58.1.126 · Cited by 139 · cited 1×
“…and reliability of the scale are consistent across children from the United States, Australia, and England (Ollendick, King, & Frary, 1989; Ollendick & Yule, 1990) and across intellectually disabled ( .96), hearing impaired ( .94), and visually impaired ( .96) children (King, Josephs,…”
BackgroundThe etiology of fear of heights and its relationship to severity and individual response patterns
Menzies, R. G., & Clarke, J. (1993) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(93)90093-a · Cited by 118 · cited 1×
“Similarly, the pattern of clinical fears shows that phobias concerning environmental threats (e.g., heights, water) typically originate in infancy (Menzies & Clarke, 1993a, 1993b), animal phobias emerge when a child is about 7 years old (Öst, 1987), injury phobias (blood-injection phobias) at 9…”
BackgroundThe etiology of childhood water phobia
Menzies, R. G., & Clarke, J. (1993) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/0005-7967(93)90131-d · Cited by 117 · cited 1×
“Similarly, the pattern of clinical fears shows that phobias concerning environmental threats (e.g., heights, water) typically originate in infancy (Menzies & Clarke, 1993a, 1993b), animal phobias emerge when a child is about 7 years old (Öst, 1987), injury phobias (blood-injection phobias) at 9…”
BackgroundAnxiety Disorders of Childhood
Gittelman, R. (1986) · Cited by 107
The behavioral inhibition system and the verbal information pathway to children's fears.
Field, A. P. (2006) · Journal of Abnormal Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-843x.115.4.742 · Cited by 104
Self-citationFear of the beast: a prospective study on the effects of negative information on childhood fear
Muris, P., Bodden, D. H. M., Merckelbach, H. L. G. J., Ollendick, T. H., & King, N. J. (2003) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7967(01)00137-1 · Cited by 97
Watch Out for the Beast: Fear Information and Attentional Bias in Children
Field, A. P. (2006) · Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology · doi:10.1207/s15374424jccp3503_8 · Cited by 94
Self-citationZinbarg, R. E. (1998) · Behavior Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7894(98)80009-9 · Cited by 82 · cited 1×
“Finally, self-report should not be accorded any less status than other measures of emotion (Zinbarg, 1998).”
BackgroundLast, C. C., Francis, G., & Strauss, C. C. (1989) · Journal of Clinical Child Psychology · doi:10.1207/s15374424jccp1802_4 · Cited by 80
A dirty animal is a scary animal! Effects of disgust-related information on fear beliefs in children
Muris, P., Mayer, B., Huijding, J., & Konings, T. (2007) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2007.09.005 · Cited by 73
The Etiology of Childhood Specific Phobia
Muris, P., & Merckelbach, H. L. G. J. (2001) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/med:psych/9780195123630.003.0016 · Cited by 71 · cited 2×
“Mineka and Zinbarg (1996, 2006) and Muris and Merckelbach (2001) concurred that social learning and fear information act as a vulnerability factor that affects future learning experiences.”
BackgroundThe verbal information pathway to fear and heart rate changes in children
Field, A. P., & Schorah, H. (2007) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01772.x · Cited by 69 · cited 1×
“Also, children’s short-term physiological responses to novel animals can be changed by verbal information (Field & Schorah, 2007).”
BackgroundSelf-citationDisgust and fear in response to spiders
Vernon, L. L., & Berenbaum, H. (2002) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930143000464 · Cited by 63 · cited 1×
“BATs are well-used measures of anxiety both clinically (Hawton, Salkovskis, Kirk, & Clark, 1989) and in clinical research (Vernon & Berenbaum, 2002).”
MethodViechtbauer, W. (2007) · Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics · doi:10.3102/1076998606298034 · Cited by 58
Systemic alarms in fear conditioning I: A reappraisal of what is being conditioned
Forsyth, J. P., & Eifert, G. H. (1996) · Behavior Therapy · doi:10.1016/s0005-7894(96)80026-8 · Cited by 49 · cited 2×
“…given that associative learning depends only on a response set being transferred to otherwise nonthreatening stimuli or situations (Forsyth & Eifert, 1996), and verbal information, vicarious learning, and direct experiences can all be considered as associative learning (Field, 2006b;…”
BackgroundKing, N. J., Josephs, A., Gullone, E., Madden, C. C., & Ollendick, T. H. (1994) · British Journal of Medical Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8341.1994.tb01805.x · Cited by 42
The effects of verbal information on children's fear beliefs about social situations
Lawson, J., Banerjee, R. A., & Field, A. P. (2006) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2006.01.007 · Cited by 38
Self-citationUnearthing the nonassociative origins of fears and phobias: A rejoinder
Forsyth, J. P., & Chorpita, B. F. (1997) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s0005-7916(97)00029-3 · Cited by 17 · cited 1×
“…learning depends only on a response set being transferred to otherwise nonthreatening stimuli or situations (Forsyth & Eifert, 1996), and verbal information, vicarious learning, and direct experiences can all be considered as associative learning (Field, 2006b; Forsyth & Chorpita, 1997).”
Background
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Temperament and the environment in the etiology of childhood anxiety
Degnan, K. A., Almas, A. N., & Fox, N. A. (2010) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02228.x · Cited by 347
Pathways of fear and anxiety in dentistry: A review
Carter, A. E. (2014) · World Journal of Clinical Cases · doi:10.12998/wjcc.v2.i11.642 · Cited by 202
Kim, J. H., & Richardson, R. (2010) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.09.003 · Cited by 189
Distorted cognition and pathological anxiety in children and adolescents
Muris, P., & Field, A. P. (2008) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930701843450 · Cited by 207
Self-citationThe Role of Verbal Threat Information in the Development of Childhood Fear. “Beware the Jabberwock!”
Muris, P., & Field, A. P. (2010) · Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review · doi:10.1007/s10567-010-0064-1 · Cited by 146
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Field, A. P., Lawson, J., & Banerjee, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Venue
- Journal of Abnormal Psychology
- Published
- 2008-02
- Volume
- 117
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 214-224
- ISSN
- 0021-843X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1846
- OpenAlex
- W2088224337
- Cited by
- 104
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 12.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Abnormal Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (R000239591)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- fear acquisition, avoidance behavior, children, implicit association task, fear beliefs, age differences, fear conditioning
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cognition, Escape Reaction, Fear, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Verbal Behavior, Disclosure
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review