Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Behav Res Ther. 2010 Apr;48(4):341-6. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2009.12.001. Epub 2009 Dec 4.
This study investigated whether fear beliefs can be installed in children after parents had received negatively tinted information about a novel stimulus. Parents of children aged 8-13 years (N = 88) were presented with negative, positive, or ambiguous information about an unknown animal and then given a number of open-ended vignettes describing confrontations with the animal with the instruction to tell their children what would happen in these situations. Results indicated that children's fear beliefs were influenced by the information that was provided to the parent. That is, parents who had received negative information provided more threatening narratives about the animal and hence installed higher levels of fear beliefs in their children than parents who had received positive information. In the case of ambiguous information, the transmission of fear was dependent on parents' trait anxiety levels. More precisely, high trait anxious parents told more negative stories about the unknown animal, which produced higher fear levels in children.
本研究调查了父母接收到关于新刺激物的负面信息后，儿童的恐惧信念是否会被植入。8-13 岁儿童的父母（N=88）收到了关于一种未知动物的负面、正面或模棱两可的信息，然后给他们一些开放式的情景描述，描述与动物的对抗，并指示他们告诉孩子在这些情况下会发生什么。结果表明，儿童的恐惧信念受到提供给父母的信息的影响。也就是说，接收到负面信息的父母提供了关于动物更具威胁性的叙述，因此比接收到正面信息的父母更能在孩子心中植入更高水平的恐惧信念。在模棱两可的信息情况下，恐惧的传递取决于父母的特质焦虑水平。更确切地说，高特质焦虑的父母讲述了更多关于未知动物的负面故事，这导致孩子的恐惧水平更高。
