Field Andy P, Schorah Hannah
Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2007 Nov;48(11):1088-93. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01772.x.
Although many studies have now demonstrated that threat information is sufficient to change children's beliefs and behaviours towards novel animals, there is no evidence to suggest that it influences the physiological component of the fear emotion.
An experiment is reported in which children (N = 26) aged between 6 and 9 were given threat, positive or no information about three novel animals and then asked to place their hands into boxes that they believed to contain each of these animals. Their average heart rate during each approach task was measured.
One-way analysis of variance revealed significant differences in the average heart rate when approaching the three boxes: heart rates were significantly higher when approaching the box containing the animal associated with threat information compared to when approaching the control animal.
These findings suggest that fear information acts not only upon cognitive and behavioural aspects of the fear emotion, but also on the physiological component.
尽管现在许多研究已经表明，威胁信息足以改变儿童对新奇动物的信念和行为，但没有证据表明它会影响恐惧情绪的生理成分。
报告了一项实验，实验中6至9岁的儿童（N = 26）被给予关于三种新奇动物的威胁、积极或无信息，然后要求他们将手放入他们认为装有每种动物的盒子中。测量了他们在每个接近任务中的平均心率。
单向方差分析显示，接近三个盒子时的平均心率存在显著差异：与接近对照动物时相比，接近装有与威胁信息相关动物的盒子时心率显著更高。
这些发现表明，恐惧信息不仅作用于恐惧情绪的认知和行为方面，还作用于生理成分。
