Who's afraid of the big bad wolf: a prospective paradigm to test Rachman'sindirect pathways in children

Rachman's theory [The conditioning theory of fear insition: a critical exam ination. Behav. Res. Ther. 15 (1977) 375-387] of fear acquisition suggests that fears and phobias can be acquired through three pathways: direct condi tioning, vicarious learning and information/instruction. Although retrospec tive studies have provided some evidence for these pathways in the developm ent of phobias during childhood [see King, Gullone, & Ollendick, Etiology o f childhood phobias: current status of Rachman's three pathway's theory. Be hav. Res. Ther. 36 (1998) 297-309 for a review], these studies have relied on long-term past memories of adult phobics or their parents. The current s tudy was aimed towards developing a paradigm in which the plausibility of R achman's indirect pathways could be investigated prospectively. In Experime nt 1, children aged between 7 and 9 were presented with two types of inform ation about novel stimuli (two monsters): video information and verbal info rmation in the form of a story. Fear-related beliefs about the monsters cha nged significantly as a result of verbal information but not video informat ion. Having established an operational paradigm, Experiment 2 looked at whe ther the source of verbal information had an effect on changes in fear-beli efs. Using the same paradigm, information about the monsters was provided b y either a teacher, an adult stranger or a peer, or no information was give n. Again, verbal information significantly changed fear-beliefs, but only w hen the information came from an adult. The role of information in the acqu isition of fear and maintenance of avoidant behaviour is discussed with ref erence to modern conditioning theories of fear acquisition. (C) 2001 Elsevi er Science Ltd. All rights reserved.