FEARED STIMULI ARE EXPECTED IN SPECIFIC SITUATIONS - THE USE OF SITUATIONALISM AND FEAR EXPECTANCY IN A SELF-REPORT MEASUREMENT OF FEARS

The Wildland Fear Expectancy Scale was developed to measure apprehensi on about visiting forested areas. The scale was administered to 1,337 middle-school and high-school students in the southeastern United Stat es. Use of an expectancy approach and reference to a specific situatio n (day trip to a forest) produced results that diverged from studies t hat used generic fear surveys, although direct comparisons are not pos sible. The catastrophic event items were ranked lowest in contrast to general fear surveys, in which they are often at the top of rankings.