Pathways to fear in spider phobic children

An expert-curated global database of online newspaper articles on spiders and spider bites

Mass media plays an important role in the construction and circulation of risk perception associated with animals. Widely feared groups such as spiders frequently end up in the spotlight of traditional and social media. We compiled an expert-curated global database on the online newspaper coverage of human-spider encounters over the past ten years (2010–2020). This database includes information about the location of each human-spider encounter reported in the news article and a quantitative characterisation of the content—location, presence of photographs of spiders and bites, number and type of errors, consultation of experts, and a subjective assessment of sensationalism. In total, we collected 5348 unique news articles from 81 countries in 40 languages. The database refers to 211 identified and unidentified spider species and 2644 unique human-spider encounters (1121 bites and 147 as deadly bites). To facilitate data reuse, we explain the main caveats that need to be made when analysing this database and discuss research ideas and questions that can be explored with it.

Measurement(s)	Newspaper articles on human-spider encounters
Technology Type(s)	Manual extraction
Sample Characteristic - Organism	Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae)
Sample Characteristic - Environment	Online
Sample Characteristic - Location	Global

Something Scary is Out There II: the Interplay of Childhood Experiences, Relict Sexual Dinichism, and Cross-cultural Differences in Spatial Fears

Children’s nighttime fear is hypothesized as a cognitive relict reflecting a long history of natural selection for anticipating the direction of nighttime predatory attacks on the presumed human ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, whose small-bodied females nesting in trees would have anticipated predatory attacks from below. Heavier males nesting on the ground would have anticipated nighttime predatory attacks from their sides. Previous research on preschool children and adults supports this cognitive-relict hypothesis by showing developmental consistencies in their remembrances of the location of a “scary thing” relative to their beds. The current study expands this research by investigating whether nighttime fear in childhood, including the effect of parental threats to behave, influenced adult spatial fears in different biotic and abiotic situations. A 25-item questionnaire employing ordinal scales was given to 474 foreign-born Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese adults living in the USA. Univariate analyses of adult remembrances of childhood indicated that females were more fearful of something scary below their beds than males. To examine the influence of childhood nighttime fear on adult fears, exploratory factor analyses supported three factors: (1) indeterminate agents, indicated something scary under the bed, the difficulty locating unspecific threats, and the brief appearances of large apparitions; (2) environmental uncertainty, indicated by potential encounters with unseen animate threats; (3) predictable animals, as the relative comfort of viewing animals in zoo exhibits. Using structural equation modeling, the results suggest that childhood nighttime fear influenced only the latent variable, indeterminate agents, in both groups via the mediating variable, parental threats.

Father's and mother's beliefs about children's anxiety

BACKGROUND

Previous research has focused on parenting styles and parental behaviors associated with children's anxiety. Parental beliefs about their child's anxiety have scarcely been studied, in spite of their probable influence in parents seeking help. The present study intended to fil that gap, by exploring what parents think about their children's anxiety and whether these cognitions are related or not to their use of professional help.

METHOD

In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with 48 parents (50% fathers) of children (9-12 years old) with anxiety problems. Theoretical thematic analysis was performed on the transcripts.

RESULTS

Three dimensions were derived from the analysis, concerning (a) the causes of child's anxiety, (b) the impact of anxiety in the child's functioning, and (c) the evolution of anxiety. Most parents perceived the child's anxiety as a permanent condition, attributing it to external and parental factors and considering that the anxiety problems have a negative impact on the child's well-being. Plus, parents who had previously sought professional help for the child's emotional problems tended to believe that anxiety could improve with child's or parents' efforts and with professional guidance, contrarily to those who had not. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.

CONCLUSION

The present study highlighted important parental beliefs about their children's anxiety that might influence their attitudes and decisions (e.g., seek for professional help). Other parental cognitions should be investigated in order to understand parenting in the context of childhood anxiety.

Neurobiology of fear and specific phobias

Fear, which can be expressed innately or after conditioning, is triggered when a danger or a stimulus predicting immediate danger is perceived. Its role is to prepare the body to face this danger. However, dysfunction in fear processing can lead to psychiatric disorders in which fear outweighs the danger or possibility of harm. Although recognized as highly debilitating, pathological fear remains insufficiently treated, indicating the importance of research on fear processing. The neurobiological basis of normal and pathological fear reactions is reviewed in this article. Innate and learned fear mechanisms, particularly those involving the amygdala, are considered. These fear mechanisms are also distinguished in specific phobias, which can indeed be nonexperiential (implicating innate, learning-independent mechanisms) or experiential (implicating learning-dependent mechanisms). Poor habituation and poor extinction are presented as dysfunctional mechanisms contributing to persistence of nonexperiential and experiential phobias, respectively.

One Session Treatment for Specific Phobias: An Adaptation for Paediatric Blood-Injection-Injury Phobia in Youth

Blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia is a chronic and debilitating disorder, which has largely been neglected in the child literature. The present paper briefly reviews the aetiology of specific phobias with particular attention to BII and provides an integrated developmental model of this disorder in youth. Evidence-based treatments for child-specific phobias are discussed, and the development of a modified one session treatment (OST) approach to enhance treatment outcomes for BII phobia in children and adolescents is described. This approach is illustrated in two children with a primary diagnosis of BII phobia. The cases illustrate the unique challenges associated with treating BII in youth and the need for a modified intervention. Modifications included addressing the role of pain (e.g., psychoeducation, more graduated exposure steps) and disgust (e.g., disgust eliciting exposure tasks) in the expression of the phobia and fainting in the maintenance of this phobia. Moreover, it is recommended that parents be more actively involved throughout treatment (e.g., education session prior to OST, contingency management training, guidance regarding planning exposure tasks following treatment) and for families to participate in a structured e-therapy maintenance programme post-treatment.

Emotion Socialization in Anxious Youth: Parenting Buffers Emotional Reactivity to Peer Negative Events

Anxious youth exhibit heightened emotional reactivity, particularly to social-evaluative threat, such as peer evaluation and feedback, compared to non-anxious youth. Moreover, normative developmental changes during the transition into adolescence may exacerbate emotional reactivity to peer negative events, particularly for anxious youth. Therefore, it is important to investigate factors that may buffer emotional reactivity within peer contexts among anxious youth. The current study examined the role of parenting behaviors in child emotional reactivity to peer and non-peer negative events among 86 anxious youth in middle childhood to adolescence (Mean age = 11.29, 54 % girls). Parenting behavior and affect was observed during a social-evaluative laboratory speech task for youth, and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods were used to examine youth emotional reactivity to typical daily negative events within peer and non-peer contexts. Results showed that parent positive behaviors, and low levels of parent anxious affect, during the stressful laboratory task for youth buffered youth negative emotional reactivity to real-world negative peer events, but not non-peer events. Findings inform our understanding of parenting influences on anxious youth's emotional reactivity to developmentally salient negative events during the transition into adolescence.

Adaptation of a paradigm for examining the development of fear beliefs through the verbal information pathway in preschool-age children

Verbal threat information has been shown to induce fear beliefs in school-age children (i.e. 6-12 years; for a review see Muris & Field, 2010). The current study adapted an existing paradigm (Field & Lawson, 2003) to examine the impact of verbal threat information on self-report and behavioral measures of fear in preschool-age children. Thirty children (aged 3-5) were provided with threat, positive, or no information about three novel Australian marsupials. There was a significant increase in fear belief for the animal associated with threat information compared to the animal associated with positive or no information. Verbal threat information did not impact behavioral avoidance in the complete sample; however, findings from an exploratory subgroup analysis excluding three-year-olds indicated that children demonstrated significant behavioral avoidance for the threat condition compared to the positive condition. These findings provide additional support for Rachman's theory of fear acquisition (1977, 1991) and suggest this paradigm may be used to examine the age at which verbal threat information becomes a relevant mode of fear acquisition for young children.

The Common Fears and Their Origins Among Turkish Children and Adolescents

The present study aimed to investigate the common fears and their origins among children and adolescents from different age, gender, and socioeconomic levels (SES). The sample was comprised of 642 females (48.8%) and 673 males (51.2%) with a total of 1,315 participants aged between 8 and 18 (M = 13.15; SD = 3.18). The Fear interview was utilised to examine the common fears and the role of conditioning, modelling and negative information in the development of children's fears. The result showed that the most common fear in Turkey was ‘God’, followed by ‘losing my friends’ and ‘going to Hell’. In addition, the findings revealed that Turkish students are more likely to learn fears by modelling rather than negative information transmission and conditioning. The results also indicated that negative information transmission had a more intensifying effect on the children and adolescents’ existing fear rather than modelling and conditioning. Furthermore, multinomial logistic regression was conducted to examine the effects of age, gender and SES on the origins of fear. Results showed that age and gender were significant predictors of origins of fear.

Nighttime fears and fantasy-reality differentiation in preschool children

Nighttime fears are very common in preschool years. During these years, children's fantasy-reality differentiation undergoes significant development. Our study was aimed at exploring the links between nighttime fears and fantasy-reality differentiation in preschool children. Eighty children (aged: 4-6 years) suffering from severe nighttime fears were compared with 32 non-fearful controls. Fears were assessed using child and parental reports. Children viewed images depicting fantastic or real entities and situations, and were asked to report whether these were imaginary or could occur in real life. The results revealed that children with nighttime fears demonstrated more fantasy-reality confusion compared to their controls. These differences in fantasy-reality differentiation were more pronounced in younger children. Additional significant associations were found between fantasy-reality differentiation and age and specific characteristics of the stimuli. These preliminary findings, suggesting a developmental delay in fantasy-reality differentiation in children with nighttime fears, have significant theoretical and clinical implications.

Reduction of verbally learned fear in children: a comparison between positive information, imagery, and a control condition

This study explored the effects of positive information and imagery as ways of reducing a verbally installed fear in children. Seventy-two primary school children aged 9-13 years were first exposed to negative information to induce fear of a novel animal, and were then randomly assigned to three interventions: positive information, imagery, or a control condition. Outcome of various interventions was assessed by means of a standardized scale of fear beliefs and an index of confirmation bias (defined as the tendency to search for threat information in relation to the feared stimulus). Results indicated that both positive information and imagery were more effective in reducing fear than the control condition. Some evidence was also obtained showing that positive information was more effective than imagery, which suggests that this intervention represents the most optimal treatment approach when dealing with verbally acquired fears in children.

The role of verbal threat information in the development of childhood fear. "Beware the Jabberwock!"

Rachman's (Behaviour Research and Therapy 15:372-387, 1977; Clinical Psychology Review 11:155-173, 1991) three pathways theory proposed that childhood fears not only arise as a consequence of direct learning experiences, but can also be elicited by means of threat information transmission. This review looks at the scientific evidence for this idea, which has accumulated during the past three decades. We review research on the influences of media exposure on children's fears, retrospective parent and child reports on the role of threat information in fear acquisition, and experimental studies that explored the causal effects of threat information on childhood fears. We also discuss possible mechanisms by which threat information exerts its influence and the processes relevant to understand the role of this type of learning experience in the origins of fear. Finally, implications for the prevention and intervention of childhood fears are briefly explored, and potential leads for future research will be highlighted.

D-cycloserine facilitation of fear extinction and exposure-based therapy might rely on lower-level, automatic mechanisms

Exposure-based therapy, a leading technique in the treatment of a range of anxiety disorders, is facilitated by D-cycloserine (DCS), a partial N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor agonist. This review discusses the potential mechanisms involved in this facilitation and its implications for developing theories of fear conditioning in humans. Basic research in rodents suggests that DCS acts by speeding up extinction. However, several laboratory-based investigations found that DCS had no effect on extinction in humans. This report proposes that these observations can be accounted for by a dual-model theory of fear conditioning in humans that engages two complementary defensive systems: a reflexive lower-order system independent of conscious awareness and a higher-order cognitive system associated with conscious awareness of danger and expectation. The DCS studies in animals seem to have explored lower-order conditioning mechanisms, whereas human studies have explored higher-order cognitive processes. These observations suggest that DCS might act preferentially on lower- rather than higher-order learning. This report presents evidence suggesting that, in humans, DCS might similarly affect lower-order learning during exposure-based therapy and, consequently, might be less effective during cognitive therapy (e.g., cognitive restructuring). Finally, it is recommended that extinction studies using DCS in humans be conducted with fear-relevant stimuli (e.g., snakes), short conditional stimulus-unconditioned stimulus intervals and intense unconditioned stimulus to promote lower-order conditioning processes.

Origins of common fears in South African children

The present study examined the origins of common childhood fears within a South African context. Six-hundred-and-fifty-five 10- to 14-year-old children were given a brief fear list that helped them to identify their most intense fear and then completed a brief questionnaire for assessing the origins of fears that was based on Rachman's [Rachman, S. (1977). The conditioning theory of fear acquisition: A critical examination. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 15, 375-387; Rachman, S. (1991). Neoconditioning and the classical theory of fear acquisition. Clinical Psychology Review, 17, 47-67] three-pathways theory. More precisely, children were asked to report whether they had experienced conditioning, modeling, and negative information experiences in relation to their most feared stimulus or situation, and also had to indicate to what extent such experiences had actually played a role in the onset and/or intensification of their fears. Results showed that children most frequently reported indirect learning experiences (i.e., modeling and negative information) in relation to their fears, whereas conditioning was clearly less often mentioned. The majority of the children had no precise idea of how their fear had actually begun, but a substantial proportion of them reported various learning experiences in relation to the onset and intensification of fears. Significant cultural differences were not only observed in the prevalence of common fears, but also in the pathways reported for the origins of fears. The results are briefly discussed in terms of the living conditions of South African children from various cultural backgrounds.

The vicarious learning pathway to fear 40 years on

Forty years on from the initial idea that fears could be learnt vicariously through observing other people's responses to a situation or stimulus, this review looks at the evidence for this theory as an explanatory model of clinical fear. First, we review early experimental evidence that fears can be learnt vicariously before turning to the evidence from both primate and human research that clinical fears can be acquired in this way. Finally, we review recent evidence from research on non-anxious children. Throughout the review we highlight problems and areas for future research. We conclude by exploring the likely underlying mechanisms in the vicarious learning of fear and the resulting clinical implications.

Specific phobia

This article describes specific phobia of childhood and its clinical presentation, discusses issues related to the differential diagnosis of specific phobia, considers the issue of comorbidity among phobic and anxiety disorders and developmental trends in the manifestation of fears, summarizes the epidemiology, causes, and course of specific phobia, and presents assessment and treatment issues. Finally, a case study is offered that serves to illuminate the major topics outlined in the article.

Fear information and the development of fears during childhood: effects on implicit fear responses and behavioural avoidance

Field, Argyris and Knowles (Behav Res Ther 39 (2001) 1259), and Field, Hamilton, Knowles and Plews (Behav Res Thera 41 (2003) 113) have developed a prospective paradigm for testing Rachman's (Behav Res Ther 15 (1977) 375) proposition that fear information is important in the development of fears and phobias in children. Despite this paradigm being an advance on retrospective reports, the research so far has been restricted to self-reported fear beliefs measured after the information is given. This gives rise to two possible shortcomings: (1) the effects could simply reflect demand characteristics resulting from children conforming to the experimental demands, and (2) although fear information changes beliefs, this might not translate into the behavioural change that would be expected if this information has a powerful effect relevant to the development of pathological fear. This paper describes an experiment that attempts to address these concerns by improving Field et al.'s (2001, 2003) basic paradigm but with the addition of two measures: (1) a behavioural measure of avoidance, and (2) an implicit attitude task that should not be susceptible to deliberate attempts to conform to experimental demands. The result showed that negative and positive information have dramatic, and opposite, effects on self-reported fear beliefs, behavioural avoidance and implicit attitudes. There were no effects of gender on any of these results. This study fully supports Rachman's model and suggests that past work does not merely reflect demand characteristics and that fear information increases behavioural avoidance as well as fear beliefs.

Differential aversive outcome expectancies for high- and low-predation fear-relevant animals

There is now considerable evidence that phobic responding is associated with a bias towards expecting aversive or traumatic outcomes following encounters with the phobic stimulus (e.g. Behavioural Brain Sci. 18 (1995) 289-325; Phobias: A Handbook of Theory, Research and Treatment. Wiley, Chichester, 1997). In terms of conditioning contingencies, this can be described as a bias towards expecting an aversive unconditioned stimulus (UCS) following a phobic conditioned stimulus (CS). The disease-avoidance model of animal fears (Anxiety Res. 4 (1992a) 314; Matchett and Davey, 1991) suggests that common animal fears may be mediated by at least two kinds of selective associations: (1) a bias towards expecting physically harmful consequences associated with predatory animals, and (2) a bias towards expecting disgust or disease-relevant consequences associated with animals that are fear-relevant (FR) but normally physically harmless. The present study investigated this model of selective associations by comparing the UCS expectations elicited by high-predation FR, low-predation FR and safe (fear-irrelevant) animals. The results indicate that high-predation animals are selectively associated with a pain relevant UCS, whilst low-predation animals are selectively associated with a disgust-relevant UCS. Safe animals were not strongly associated with either class of UCS. These findings provide evidence for a possible associative mechanism by which changes in nonspecific levels of disgust sensitivity may directly affect levels of fear to low-predation FR animals.

Fear information and social phobic beliefs in children: a prospective paradigm and preliminary results

This paper presents a first attempt to develop a prospective paradigm to test Rachman's (Behav. Res. Ther. 15 (1977) 375) theory of fear acquisition for social fears. Following the prospective paradigm for animal fears developed by Field et al. (Behav. Res. Ther. 39 (2001) 1259) an attempt is made to adapt this paradigm to look at the effect of fear information in the development of social fears. A large group of normal children (N=135) who were at an age (10-13 years) at which social concerns are most pertinent were tested using this paradigm. They were given positive, negative or neutral information about three social situations: public speaking, eating in public, and meeting a new group of children. Children's fear beliefs were measured before and after the information was given and the information was given by a teacher, a same age peer or no information was given (a control). The results indicate that although information can change social fear beliefs it is dependent upon the type of social activity and who provides the information. The implications of these initial results for our understanding of both the role of fear information in the development of social fear beliefs, and the limitations of this current paradigm are discussed.

Mother knows best: effects of maternal modelling on the acquisition of fear and avoidance behaviour in toddlers

The present study was conducted to investigate the influence of parental modelling on the acquisition of fear and avoidance towards novel, fear-relevant stimuli in a sample of 30 toddlers. The toddlers were shown a rubber snake and spider, which were alternately paired with either negative or positive facial expressions by their mothers. Both stimuli were presented again after a 1- and a 10-min delay, while mothers maintained a neutral expression. The children showed greater fear expressions and avoidance of the stimuli following negative reactions from their mothers. This was true for both genders although the degree of modelled avoidance was greater in girls than in boys. The strong observational learning results are consistent with views that modelling constitutes a mechanism by which fear may be acquired early in life.

'Nonspecific' rather than 'nonassociative' pathways to phobias: a commentary on Poulton and Menzies

This commentary attempts to clarify the nature of contemporary associative accounts of phobias, and to describe how they might contribute to the explanation of the diversity of phobic aetiologies. It is argued that conditioning-equivalent associations underpin all phobic conditions, and that the role of experimental psychopathology research is to determine how these associations are acquired. The commentary then proceeds to discuss some of the theoretical problems with the nonassociative account of phobias as it is currently described by Poulton and Menzies, and to suggest that some interpretations of their retrospective and prospective data may not be incompatible with contemporary associative accounts. The outcome of this is that it may be more suitable to describe the fourth pathway to phobia acquisition described by Poulton and Menzies as a 'nonspecific' rather than a 'nonassociative' pathway.

The etiology of specific fears and phobias in children: a critique of the non-associative account

The non-associative account of phobic etiology assumes that a number of specific fears (e.g., fear of heights, water, spiders, strangers, and separation) have an evolutionary background and may occur in the absence of learning experiences (e.g., conditioning). By this view, these specific fears pertain to stimuli that once posed a challenge to the survival of our prehistoric ancestors. Accordingly, they would emerge spontaneously during the course of normal development and only in a minority of individuals, these specific fears would persist into adulthood. While the non-associative approach has generated interesting findings, several critical points can be raised. First, it capitalizes on negative findings, i.e., the failure to document learning experiences (e.g., conditioning, modeling) in the history of phobic children. Second, it largely ignores factors that have been found to be crucial for the acquisition of early childhood fears (e.g., the developmental level of the child, stimulus characteristics such as novelty, aversiveness, and unpredictability, and early experience with uncontrollable events). As an alternative to the non-associative account, we briefly describe a multifactorial model of childhood fears and phobias.

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

Rachman's theory [The conditioning theory of fear insition: a critical examination. Behav. Res. Ther. 15 (1977) 375-387] of fear acquisition suggests that fears and phobias can be acquired through three pathways: direct conditioning, vicarious learning and information/instruction. Although retrospective studies have provided some evidence for these pathways in the development of phobias during childhood [see King, Gullone, & Ollendick, Etiology of childhood phobias: current status of Rachman's three pathway's theory. Behav. 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 study was aimed towards developing a paradigm in which the plausibility of Rachman's indirect pathways could be investigated prospectively. In Experiment 1, children aged between 7 and 9 were presented with two types of information about novel stimuli (two monsters): video information and verbal information in the form of a story. Fear-related beliefs about the monsters changed significantly as a result of verbal information but not video information. Having established an operational paradigm, Experiment 2 looked at whether the source of verbal information had an effect on changes in fear-beliefs. Using the same paradigm, information about the monsters was provided by either a teacher, an adult stranger or a peer, or no information was given. Again, verbal information significantly changed fear-beliefs, but only when the information came from an adult. The role of information in the acquisition of fear and maintenance of avoidant behaviour is discussed with reference to modern conditioning theories of fear acquisition.

Fears, worries, and scary dreams in 4- to 12-year-old children: their content, developmental pattern, and origins

Investigated anxiety symptoms in normal school children 4 to 12 years of age (N = 190). The percentages of children reporting fears, worries, and scary dreams were 75.8, 67.4, and 80.5%, respectively, indicating that these anxiety symptoms are quite common among children. Inspection of the developmental pattern of these phenomena revealed that fears and scary dreams were common among 4- to 6-year-olds, became even more prominent in 7- to 9-year-olds, and then decreased in frequency in 10- to 12-year-olds. The developmental course of worry deviated from this pattern. This phenomenon was clearly more prevalent in older children (i.e., 7- to 12-year-olds) than in younger children. Furthermore, although the frequency of certain types of fears, worries, and dreams were found to change across age groups (e.g., the prevalence of fears and scary dreams pertaining to imaginary creatures decreased with age, whereas worry about test performance increased with age), the top intense fears, worries, and scary dreams remained relatively unchanged across age levels. An examination of the origins of these common anxiety phenomena showed that for fears and scary dreams, information was the most commonly reported pathway, whereas for worry, conditioning experiences were more prominent.

The convergent validity of the Phobia Origins Questionnaire (POQ): a review of the evidence

The Phobic Origins Questionnaire (POQ) [Ost, L.-G. & Hugdahl, K. (1981). Acquisition of phobias and anxiety response patterns in clinical patients. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 19, 439-447.] is the most commonly cited instrument for determining the origins of phobic anxiety and data obtained using this instrument strongly support the role of conditioning in the acquisition of fear reactions. The construct validity of the POQ in assessing episodes of conditioning has been questioned [e.g. Menzies, R. G. & Clarke, J. C. (1994). Retrospective studies of the origins of phobias: a review. Anxiety, Stress and Coping, 7, 305-318.] This paper examined the convergent validity of the POQ by comparing origins' classifications based on the POQ to classifications based on alternative instruments. The convergent validity of the POQ was found to be extremely poor. The POQ was consistently associated with a much greater likelihood of classifying the origin of fear reactions as due to direct conditioning episodes than was found using alternative instruments. The findings question the usefulness of the POQ in examining the origins of phobic anxiety.

A cross-cultural study of animal fears

The present study represents a cross-cultural study of animal fears in which subjects from seven Western and Asian countries were asked to rate their fear of a range of familiar animals. Factor analyses of these ratings in all samples revealed a coherent three factor solution in which animals fell into a fear-irrelevant, fear-relevant (fierce) or disgust-relevant category. The core group of animals making up the disgust-relevant category were similar across cultures. Some views on how a universal disgust-relevant category of feared animals may have developed are discussed.

Etiology of childhood phobias: current status of Rachman's three pathways theory

Despite advances in the assessment and treatment of childhood phobias, little is known about their etiology. Rachman has proposed that phobias are acquired through three different pathways: direct conditioning, modeling or instructions/information. We evaluate the empirical support for Rachman's theory in relation to the origins of childhood phobias. Although we find support for Rachman's theory, a number of methodological and theoretical issues are emphasized. For example, insufficient attention has been given to the reliability and validity of retrospective subject reports on the acquisition of childhood phobias. Also some findings on the origins of childhood fears and phobias are more consistent with a nonassociative account of phobia onset, thus providing an interesting challenge to Rachman's theory.

The etiology of childhood spider phobia

Twenty-six girls with a clinical spider phobia and 26 matched control girls were interviewed about conditioning, modeling, and negative information experiences in connection with spiders. In addition, parents of the phobic girls were independently interviewed about the origins of their child's phobia. Phobic children more often reported aversive conditioning experiences with spiders than did control children. Also, in a number of cases, conditioning events described by the phobic children were confirmed by their parents, a result that replicates the findings of Merckelbach, Muris and Schouten (1996; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 34, 935-938). Taken together, the results contradict a strong version of the non-associative account of phobias and suggest that in at least some cases, conditioning events may contribute to the development of (childhood) spider phobia.

Common childhood fears and their origins

The present study examined rank orders and characteristics of childhood fears. A 'free option' approach ('What do you fear most?') deviated markedly from the fear rank order based on the Fear Survey Schedule for Children. A second aim of the study was to investigate the origins of prevalent childhood fears. In contrast to the results of Ollendick and King (1991, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29, 117-123), conditioning was found to be the most commonly reported pathway related to exacerbation and onset of fears. Finally, special attention was given to the top intense fear in children, namely fear of spiders. Children who reported 'none', 'some' or 'a lot' of spider fear were compared with each other in terms of pathways. No differences between the three groups were found with respect to the frequency of modeling and information experiences. However, high fearful children more often reported conditioning experiences than low or moderate fearful children.