McCathie H, Spence S H
Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, N.S.W., Australia.
Behav Res Ther. 1991;29(5):495-502. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(91)90134-o.
This study was designed to investigate parameters of children's fear in terms of frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour. It is suggested that current measures such as the Fear Survey Schedule for Children--Revised (FSSC-R) do not assess fearful behaviour in the sense of the occurrence of fearful responding in daily life, but rather reflect a negative affective response to the thought of occurrence of specific events. A modified version of the FSSC-R examined the frequency of fearful thoughts/feelings and avoidance activities amongst 376 children aged 7-12 yr. Contrary to predictions, it was found that children reported high levels of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour to those items identified as the greatest fears on the FSSC-R, namely fears of injury, illness, death and danger. These events were typically of low probability (e.g. earthquakes) and the question was raised as to what children are responding to when they are asked to rate their fearful responses. The same pattern of results was reflected in older compared to younger children. It is suggested that even when children are asked to rate frequency of fearful thoughts or avoidance behaviour, they tend to respond to fear questionnaire items according to their affective response to the image or thought of the stimulus situation rather than their actual fear responses. Both the FSSC-R and the modified version were found to discriminate between teacher nominated high and low fearful children and to correlate significantly with a self report measure of anxiety.
本研究旨在从恐惧想法的频率和回避行为方面调查儿童恐惧的参数。有人认为，目前的测量方法，如儿童恐惧调查表修订版（FSSC-R），并非从日常生活中恐惧反应发生的角度来评估恐惧行为，而是反映了对特定事件发生的想法的负面情感反应。一个修订版的FSSC-R调查了376名7至12岁儿童的恐惧想法/感受频率和回避活动。与预测相反，研究发现，儿童对FSSC-R上被确定为最大恐惧的项目，即对受伤、疾病、死亡和危险的恐惧，报告了高水平的恐惧想法和回避行为。这些事件通常概率较低（如地震），于是有人提出问题，当要求儿童对他们的恐惧反应进行评分时，他们到底在对什么做出反应。与年幼儿童相比，年长儿童也反映出相同的结果模式。有人认为，即使要求儿童对恐惧想法或回避行为的频率进行评分，他们往往也是根据对刺激情境的形象或想法的情感反应来回答恐惧问卷项目，而不是根据他们实际的恐惧反应。研究发现，FSSC-R和修订版都能区分教师提名的高恐惧儿童和低恐惧儿童，并且与焦虑的自我报告测量显著相关。
