Conversely, children who had earlier not been
reported
as afraid of the dark or of anticipated events, such as accidents or robbers, were later reported to have
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become so.
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become so.
Bowlby - Separation
By contrast, when an object moves away there is no response.
In the next chapter it is seen that young rhesus monkeys behave in very similar ways.
The fear-eliciting properties of an approaching or looming object have probably been underestimated in the past; and it seems likely that, in some of the experiments on an infant's response to strangers and to novel objects, approach of the stranger or object has played a larger part in determining a fear response than the experimenters realized.
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A stimulus condition related to looming and approach is darkness. During the first year of life, fear of darkness, which is common in later years, is not very evident. Even so, by the age of ten months, infants are more likely to leave mother to enter and explore a brightly illuminated room than a dimly lit one ( Rheingold & Eckerman 1970).
Fear of an Anticipated Situation
Yet another situation that arouses fear, observable towards the end of the first year but not earlier, is when a baby uses current clues to anticipate something unpleasant. Levy ( 1951) describes the behaviour of babies of different ages when they catch sight of a doctor preparing to repeat an injection first given a few weeks earlier. Before eleven months of age only a very occasional infant was observed to react with fear. At ages eleven and twelve months, however, one-quarter of the sample did so. In such cases, it seems probable, learning from experience has occurred.
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Thus by the end of the first year an infant is withdrawing in an organized way when he perceives any of a number of stimulus situations that can be regarded as naturally occurring clues to potentially dangerous situations. Further, he has learnt a good deal about his perceptual world. Towards the familiar and the strange, and towards what he has learnt is agreeable and what disagreeable, he is behaving with a rough-and-ready discrimination. He moves towards the one and away from the other.
Fear-arousing situations: the second and later years Sources of Data
It has already been noted how few researchers have made systematic attempts to study the situations that commonly arouse fear in humans. Most of the few data published during recent decades come from various longitudinal studies of children developing. Examples are a study by Macfarlane, Allen & Honzik ( 1954) of about one hundred children in California and another by Newson & Newson ( 1968) of 700 children and their parents in an English urban community. In none of these studies, however, was the nature of the situations that arouse fear at the centre of interest, nor was the information reported obtained either from direct observation or from interview of the children themselves. The latter limitation applies also to the findings of a cross-sectional study of nearly 500 children undertaken by Lapouse & Monk ( 1959) in New York State. 1 In all these projects information came only from mothers.
Because of the paucity of recently gathered data it is necessary to turn to the results of work done during the early years of child development research.
Some forty years ago an American psychologist, A. T. Jersild, began a series of studies in which he set out to describe the kinds of situation in which children exhibit fear, and how these change as a child grows older. 2 Different methods of obtaining information were employed in different studies. The four main methods were: day-to-day recording by parents; simple experiments; interviewing children about situations of which
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1 A representative sample, distinct from the smaller sample referred to on p. 98 above.
2 Jersild's principal studies are published as monographs: Jersild Markey & Jersild ( 1933)
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and Jersild & Holmes ( 1935a). Abstracts of these and other studies with full references are in the symposium on Child Behavior and Development edited by Barker, Kounin & Wright ( 1943), and also in Jersild ( 1947)
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they were currently afraid; giving questionnaires to adults about what they recalled of the situations that made them afraid as children. The subjects of each study were different and were drawn from different age-ranges. Despite a number of shortcomings, these studies are still much the most extensive yet attempted and therefore remain principal sources. Not only do the findings conform with ordinary experience, but at a number of points they are supported and amplified both by earlier (e. g. Hagman 1932) and by more recent work.
Findings from Parents' Records and Naturalistic Observations
The aim of one of Jersild's studies was to obtain a detailed record of the occasions and situations in which ordinary children exhibit fear during the course of their everyday lives. To this end the parents of over one hundred young children were enlisted, all of whom were prepared to keep detailed records of every occasion on which their child showed fear during a period lasting twenty-one days. Mimeographed forms and instructions were issued. On each occasion that a child showed fear parents were asked to record: (a) the actual behaviour exhibited (e. g. startle, withdrawing, turning to an adult, cries or other vocalizations, and words spoken); (b) the situation in which the behaviour occurred, in terms not only of its apparent cause (specific stimulus) but of the setting (place, time, what child was doing, persons present); and (c) the child's current condition (well or ill, fresh or tired).
In all, 136 records were obtained of children between twelve and fifty-nine months of age (the records of a few younger and older children were too few to give useful results). The sample was biased towards the higher end of the socio-economic scale. A majority lived in a large city, but there were also children living in suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. Distribution by age was as follows: second year, twenty-three children; third year, forty-five; fourth year, forty-six; and fifth year, twenty-two children.
The authors were struck by how few were the occurrences of fear recorded by the parents of children in these age-groups, a finding confirmed when observations were made of some of the same children in a nursery school. The occurrences recorded during the three weeks for children in the two younger agegroups averaged only six per child, or two a week. For children in the two older age-groups the average was three and a half per child, or barely more than one a week. For about one in
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ten of the children at each age-level no occurrence of fear was recorded throughout the three- week period. Although these figures suggest that some occurrences of slight or transient fear may have gone unrecorded, there is independent evidence that at least some children during their second year show fear very infrequently. For example, Valentine ( 1930), who kept daily notes on his children, was impressed by the infrequency with which he saw fear responses in them and describes how surprised he was when a child who had fallen and hurt himself would none the less immediately go climbing again. Anderson ( 1972a), who observed fifty-two children between the ages of twelve months and three years two months in a London park,
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also remarks how infrequently the children exhibited fear. Occurrences, he reports, were 'uncommon and short-lived'. It should, however, be noted that in both these studies and also in Jersild's the children observed were not alone. The difference made by presence or absence of a trusted adult cannot be exaggerated (see the final section of this chapter). When we turn to examine the kinds of situation that are reported to arouse fear we find remarkably little change between the second and the fifth years. From the mother's day-to-day records reported by Jersild six situations stand out as being likely to arouse fear at least occasionally in a fairly large proportion of the children at each age-level:
--noise, and events associated with noise
--heights
--strange people or familiar people in strange guise --strange objects and surroundings
--animals
--pain or persons associated with pain.
In each of these six situations some 40 per cent of all the children were recorded as having shown fear behaviour on some occasion during the three-week spell. In so far as there was any reduction with age in the proportion of children showing fear the reduction occurred after the third birthday. 1
____________________
1 When analysed by age the picture from these six situations is as follows. Of the one-year-
olds, 60 per cent were recorded as having shown fear of noise, 52 per cent fear of pain or potential pain, and from 35 to 40 per cent as having shown fear in each of the other four situations, of which one was the presence of animals. Of the four-year-olds, only 23 per cent were recorded as having shown fear of noise and events
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Among the many other situations recorded as having aroused fear, but in a smaller percentage of these children, were sudden unexpected movements, especially when an object was both approaching and noisy, and also bright lights, flashes, etc. Together, these kinds of situation elicited fear in nearly 30 per cent of the one- and two-year-olds; but of the older children no more than about 10 per cent had shown fear in those situations. The dark, especially being alone in the dark, was recorded as having aroused fear in about 10 per cent of the children during the three-week period of observation: here there was no change with age. Fear of being left alone or abandoned was recorded for about 10 per cent of the children at each of the age- levels. Only after the second birthday were any of the children recorded as having shown fear of imaginary creatures, the proportion being about 6 per cent. The origin and nature of such fears are discussed in Chapters 10 and 11.
The forms of behaviour recorded as shown by these children when afraid differed very little between the younger and the older ones. The behaviour most frequently recorded was crying in its various forms, from whimpering to screaming and including explicit cries for help. In each age-group no less than onethird of the episodes of fear recorded by mothers were signalled by crying of one sort or another. Another form of behaviour also frequently recorded was either turning towards an adult or running to him or her, with or without clinging: in each age-group about one-sixth of the fear-producing situations were said to elicit behaviour of that sort. Avoiding action or running away was recorded in about one-fifth of the episodes. In the remainder, fear was inferred because a child trembled or jumped, showed a frightened
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expression, hid his head, or stayed unwontedly still. Occasionally a child was aggressive, or protective of another.
In this catalogue of forms of behaviour held by mothers to be indicative of fear it should be noted that two of the commonest are crying for or turning towards a protective figure. This finding resembles that of Anderson ( 1972a) when he interviewed the mothers of eighteen two-year-olds in London. The forms of fear behaviour most commonly described to him were screaming, crying, turning to mother, clinging to or
____________________
associated with noise, but no fewer than 40 per cent had shown fear of animals, the same percentage as for the one-year-olds. In each of the other situations, however, including the possibility of pain, only about 15 per cent of the four-year-olds had shown fear.
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following mother, and staying close to her. Withdrawing from the frightening object was referred to less frequently.
When, however, Anderson was himself observing the fear behaviour of another but very similar sample of toddlers while they were with mother in a London park (see p. 107 above), rather different forms of fear behaviour were seen. In the dozen episodes observed, the fear- arousing object was an approaching animal (eight cases), an approaching child (three cases), and noise (one case). In such conditions a toddler would suddenly cease his activity, back away from whatever it was that was frightening him while continuing to fixate it, and simultaneously edge towards his mother. Crying was not observed. Once the object had moved away, the child would advance again but continue to fixate it.
The differences in forms of behaviour exhibited turn presumably on the intensity of fear. At high intensity crying and clinging are common; at low intensity withdrawing from the object and backing towards mother.
A limitation of records kept by parents and also of naturalistic observations such as those of Anderson is that, when a child is not described as having shown fear of a particular class of situation during the period his behaviour was recorded, it remains uncertain whether he is never afraid in such situations or whether it just happened that during that span of time he was never confronted by one when his mother or the observer was about. The experiments devised by Jersild & Holmes help to clarify this matter, though they too have obvious limitations.
Experimental Findings
It is evident that ethical considerations limit severely the kinds of experiment it is legitimate to do in order to explore the situations that arouse fear in humans, especially in young children.
In their experimental work with children between their second and sixth birthdays, therefore, Jersild & Holmes took many precautions. In the first place, each child was throughout with an adult who was experienced with children, and who had made a friendly contact with him before the experiments began. In the second, each situation with which a child was confronted
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was one that many children hardly find frightening. In the third, a child was introduced to the situation by easy stages. And finally, if a child refused to take part, the experiment was ended.
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There were eight potentially fear-provoking situations. Four were presented on the first day, extending over about fifteen minutes; two on the day following; and two about four weeks later. For a few minutes between each fear-inducing situation a child was allowed to play with toys. Since it appears that the situations were presented to every child in the same order, there is a serious possibility that responses to later situations may have been influenced by the experience of earlier ones; though in which direction such influence may have been exerted it is difficult to know. On the one hand is the possibility that, through habituation, responses to later situations may have been less than they would otherwise have been. On the other is the possibility that, as the series progressed, a child may have become increasingly sensitized and therefore have shown more fear in some of the later situations than he would otherwise have done. The finding that a larger proportion of children showed fear in the later experimental situations than in the earlier ones is in keeping with the latter possibility. The eight situations were chosen because earlier studies had shown that they were likely to elicit at least a little fear in a substantial proportion of young children. Details are as follows:
1. Being left alone: When the child is seated at a table playing with a toy, the experimenter names a pretext for leaving the room (which until the time of the experiment was unfamiliar to the child). The experimenter remains outside the room for two minutes. The child's behaviour is recorded by concealed observers.
2. Sudden displacement or loss of support: A bridge-like piece of apparatus, consisting of two boards laid end to end at a height of about two inches above the floor, was used. The first board is securely supported, but when the child steps onto the second board, which is supported only at the middle, it gives way and descends to the floor.
3. Dark passage: While playing ball with the child, the experimenter seemingly inadvertently throws the ball into a dark passage, 18 ft long, leading from one corner of the room. The child is asked to retrieve the ball.
4. Strange person: While the child is temporarily withdrawn from the room an assistant, dressed in a long grey coat, a large black hat, and a veil that obscures her features, seats herself in one of the two chairs near the entrance. The child
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returns and his reactions are observed when he notices the stranger and when he is asked to obtain toys placed near the stranger's chair.
5. High board: A board 12 in. wide, about 8 ft long, and 2 in. thick, held firmly in place at the ends by two stationary holders, is arranged at various heights from the ground and the child is asked to walk from one end of the board to the other to obtain a box of brightly coloured toys. The board is first placed at a distance of four feet from the floor; it is subsequently lowered if the child refuses to walk across at this height and is raised if he performs at the four-foot level.
6. Loud sound: An iron pipe 2 ft long and 2 1/4 in. diameter, suspended from the ceiling in a corner of the room behind a screen, is struck a sharp blow with a hammer while the child and the experimenter are seated at a table containing toys. The child's response to the unexpected noise from an unseen source is first observed and then, pointing to the screen, the experimenter asks the child to 'Go and see what made that noise'.
7. Snake: A snake, harmless and about 2 ft long, was placed in a box sufficiently deep to 93
ensure that it could not immediately climb out when the top was removed. In the box was placed a small coloured toy. The child's attention is directed to the box, the lid is uncovered, and the child is allowed to look in; if he raises any questions the experimenter simply says 'It is a snake', and then points to the toy and asks the child to reach in and get the toy.
8. Large dog: While the child is seated at a table with toys a large collie dog is brought into the room on a leash by a familiar person. The dog is led to a certain point in the room and, after preliminary comment by the experimenter, the child is asked to go and pat the dog.
The subjects were 105 children, half from a private nursery school for better-off families and half from a public nursery school for poorer families. Fifty-seven were boys and fortyeight girls. Children were tested only when they were fit, willing, and in a good humour; and the experiments were never combined with any other sort of examination. On each occasion when tests were carried out, two-year-olds and three-yearolds were well represented (never fewer than twenty-one children tested and usually between thirty and forty-five); but
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four-year-olds and five-year-olds were rather few (numbers tested varied between seven and fourteen children). Each experiment, except the first, was presented to a child in four stages: first he was given directions what to do; then, if he was hesitant, he was given reassurance and encouragement; then, if he still refrained, the experimenter offered to accompany him in the task; finally, if a child was still reluctant to take part, the experiment was abandoned. A child's performance was scored on a five-point scale:
0 performs without hesitation
1 performs after hesitation and with caution
2 performs alone, but only after protesting and seeking reassurance 3 refuses to perform alone but does so when accompanied
4 complete refusal.
Good reliability was obtained between independent observers.
In presenting their findings Jersild & Holmes use stringent criteria for their assessment of fear: only refusal to perform alone and refusal to perform at all (categories 3 and 4) were held to be responses indicative of fear. Had the children who performed alone but only after seeking reassurance (category 2) been included also, the percentages showing fear responses would, the authors report, have been raised by about onethird. Results are given in the table below.
5? 0-5? 11 21-13
Proportions of children showing (categories 3 and 4) in experimental situationsa
fear responses Age: 2? 0-2? 11 3? 0-3? 11 4? 0-4? 11
Situation N:b 21-33 28-45 7-14 %%%%
1 Left alone 12 16 7 0
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Proportions of children showing fear (categories 3 and 4) in experimental situationsa
responses
4? 0-4? 11 5? 0-5? 11 7-14 21-13
0
0
0
0
0
43
not tested
Situation
2. Loss of support 3. Dark passage 4. Strange person 5. High board
Age: 2? 0-2? 11 N:b 21-33
24 9 47 51 31 22 36 36 23 20 35 56 62 43
3? 0-3? 11 28-45
0
36
12
7
14
43
43
6. Loud sound
7. Snake
8. Large dog
aSource: Jersild & Holmes ( 1935a). bNumber of children varies by experiments.
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The proportion of children showing fear according
differs little when two-year-olds are compared with three-year-olds. After the fourth birthday, however, there is a marked reduction, which becomes particularly noticeable after the fifth birthday. Because, as remarked earlier, the experimental situations were presented to each child in the same order, it is difficult to be confident how they compare with each other in their fearinducing potential. The three situations that stand out in the series as being frightening to a high proportion of children up to the fifth birthday are nos. 3, 7, and 8: the dark passage, the snake, and the large dog. In each of these situations never less than one-third of the children refused to perform alone, and in certain groups more than half refused. When the children who were scored in category 2, having performed only after receiving reassurance and encouragement, are included the percentages range from about 50 to 80 per cent. And had the children who hesitated and performed with caution (category 1) been included also, an overwhelming majority would have been found to have exhibited some trace of fear in these three situations. Thus, even when the proviso about the effects of test order is borne in mind, the experiments go some way towards confirming a commonly held view that a very large proportion of young children are apt to be afraid of the dark and of animals.
The Findings in Relation to Age
A study of the data reviewed so far suggests that, if we leave aside fear of separation as a special problem, the whole medley of situations that can be observed to arouse fear in children during their first five years can be listed in four main categories, whose fear-arousing properties vary to some extent with the age of the children:
a. Noise and situations associated with noise; sudden change of illumination and sudden
unexpected movement; an object approaching; and height. These situations are especially 95
to these criteria in these experiments
liable to arouse fear during the first, second, and third years of life.
b. Strange people and familiar people in strange guise; strange objects and strange places.
Strangeness is especially liable to arouse fear during the last quarter of the first year -113-
and through the second and third years, and then tends to diminish.
c. Animals: not only did animals commonly elicit fear in children of each of the age-groups for which parents kept records (35 per cent in the second year and 40 per cent or above in the older children), but the presence of an animal was the experimental situation that aroused fear most frequently. All other relevant studies, some to be described shortly, also report a high incidence of fear of animals.
d. Darkness, especially being alone in the dark. Occurrences of fear in such situations were recorded by mothers for about 20 per cent of the children at each age-level, and, if anything, the incidence seems to rise with age. Furthermore, fear of the dark and of being alone in the dark was seen in about half the children tested in the experimental situations. Again, as with fear of animals, a high incidence of fear in these situations is reported in several other studies.
The situations listed in categories (a) and (b) above are simple and require little or no learning. They tend to elicit fear in the youngest children especially and to do so less as children get older. Those in categories (c) and (d) are more complex and may include some reference to potential events. The fear-inducing properties of these situations do not diminish during the early years of childhood; indeed, those of some situations tend to increase.
These conclusions regarding changes with age are based on the cross-sectional studies discussed so far, in which each agegroup comprises a distinct group of children. It is therefore reassuring to find that they are confirmed when a single group of children is followed longitudinally over a period of a year or more.
In another of their many studies Jersild & Holmes ( 1935b), relying on information from parents, compared changes in situations feared in a sample of forty-seven children (thirtythree aged initially three or four years and fourteen aged initially five or six years). The follow-up period varied between thirteen and thirty-five months for different children. As they got older, many children earlier reported to be afraid of noise, sudden change of stimulation, strangeness and strangers were reported as no longer afraid.
Conversely, children who had earlier not been reported as afraid of the dark or of anticipated events, such as accidents or robbers, were later reported to have
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become so. These shifts are in keeping with a child's increasing, though still very limited, capacities for appraising current events in terms of their significance for the future, a topic considered further in Chapter 10.
A Note on Fear of Strangers
The tendency for something or someone strange to elicit fear has been much discussed. Whether fear is or is not aroused in a particular instance evidently turns on a great number of conditions that are still not fully understood. In his observations of toddlers in a park with mother (see p. 107 above), what impressed Anderson was that the presence of a passing
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stranger seemed to go almost unnoticed. On the other hand, in his discussions with mothers of another group of toddlers (see p. 108 above), he found that eight out of eighteen children were reported as having at some time shown fear of a stranger. This information was volunteered spontaneously by the mothers who had plainly been much struck by it. The most usual situation was when a relative or friend, well known to mother but perhaps little known to the child, visited. Unlike total strangers, who would naturally stay at a distance, relatives and friends are apt to approach mother and child enthusiastically, and mother herself reciprocates. It was in situations likely to have been of this kind that a number of the children had become very frightened. (Not infrequently, some unusual aspect of the visitor was picked upon -- spectacles, wrinkles, beard, or a loud voice. ) The conclusion to which Anderson's findings point is that what young children find especially frightening is the combination of strangeness and approach (cf. the findings of Morgan & Ricciuti ( 1969) described on p. 120 below).
If that conclusion is correct, it would go some way to explain why the children studied by Heinicke & Westheimer ( 1966) in a residential nursery so often showed fear of the observer (see Chapter 1 above, pp. 9 - 10 ). First, the children were without mother; second, the observer remained a relative stranger to them; third, the observer 'actively though cautiously approached the child to see how he would react'.
Fear of Animals and of the Dark
It is remarkable with what regularity being afraid of animals and of the dark is reported for children from the age of three years upwards. In the Macfarlane longitudinal study, for example, more than 90 per cent of the hundred children in the
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sample were reported by mother to have shown fear of some specific situation at one or another age during the period in which they were studied, which was from the age of twenty- one months to fourteen years. At each yearly examination up to the age of eleven years between one-third and one-half of the children were reported as having shown fear of a particular situation; and of the situations most frequently reported as feared, dogs and the dark were the commonest, especially in the younger age-groups ( Macfarlane, Allen & Honzik 1954). Comparable findings, also based on mothers' reports, are presented by Lapouse & Monk ( 1959) who made a crosssectional study of a representative sample of 482 children between the ages of six and twelve years in New York State.
Similar findings emerge again from two further studies conducted by Jersild. In one of them he and his colleagues interviewed some four hundred children between the ages of five and twelve years (twenty-five boys and twenty-five girls at each of eight age-levels). Starting each interview on neutral topics the interviewer went on to inquire of the child about the things that scared or frightened him. In a second, questionnaires were issued to some three hundred students and members of staff aged between seventeen and thirty-five years (mostly between eighteen and twenty-six). Subjects were asked to describe situations that had frightened them as children and to indicate which was the earliest they could remember, which they were most intensely afraid of, and which they were most persistently afraid of; a single situation might of course qualify under all three heads.
The situations that these adults recalled as having aroused fear were closely in line with those described by the five- to twelve-year-old children. In both groups fear of animals bulked
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large. Among the children it was clearly highest at the younger age-levels: fear of animals was described by 27 per cent of the five- and six-year-olds, by 22 per cent of the seven- and eightyear-olds, and by 11 per cent of the older children. Among the adults, about one in six reported fear of animals as the earliest fear they recalled, and /or the most intense and/or the most persistent.
Fear of the dark is frequently a mixture of being afraid when alone in the dark, especially of strange noises or other happenings, and being afraid of being attacked in the dark, perhaps by imaginary creatures, such as ghosts or characters out of story-books, or perhaps by burglars and kidnappers. Being
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afraid in such situations and ways was reported by about 20 per cent of the five- to twelve- year-olds, the incidence not changing greatly with age, and it was recalled also by about the same proportion of young adults; among the latter fear of the dark resembled fear of animals in being recollected as having been very intense and very persistent.
Fear of Damage, Illness, Death
In both series some 10 per cent of subjects reported or recalled being afraid of getting damaged in an accident or a fight, though fear of pain as such was rarely mentioned.
Fear of becoming ill or dying was conspicuous by its infrequency. It was mentioned by none of the 200 children under nine years of age and by only six of the 200 from nine to twelve. About 3 per cent of the young adults recalled fear of illness or death as their most intense or their most persistent fear. Absence of fear of death among children under ten is in keeping with Anthony's study reported in The Child's Discovery of Death ( 1940). After examining the steps by which a child gradually acquires the concept of death as an irreversible departure, Anthony concludes that death acquires its emotional significance through its equation with separation (see Appendix I, p. 384 n).
Fear of the illness or death of a parent was rarely mentioned by either the children or adults questioned by Jersild; the proportion was about 3 per cent in each group.
It is interesting to note how infrequently the situations observed most regularly to arouse fear during the first two or three years of life are referred to by the older children or recalled by the young adults. In neither series do more than 5 per cent of the subjects report or recall being afraid of noise, sudden movement, falling, strange objects or strange people--so long as it is light. During darkness, however, as already described, the position is very different.
Clinicians will inevitably be sceptical whether interviews, even if skilfully conducted, or questionnaires can possibly elicit from either children or young adults an accurate and comprehensive account of all the situations that frighten or have frightened them. The fact that the younger children (five- and six-year-olds) described fewer such situations than did the older ones suggests, indeed, that their accounts were especially inadequate. Nevertheless, though some fear-arousing situations
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98
were no doubt under-reported, it seems probable that such positive information as was given can be regarded as valid.
In this chapter all that is attempted is a description of the situations that commonly arouse fear in humans and a rough indication of how these situations tend to change as a child grows towards adulthood. Possible explanations of the findings are postponed until later chapters. Meanwhile there is more to be said about the situations themselves.
Compound situations
Again and again it is found that a child or adult is especially apt to be frightened in a situation characterized by two or more potentially alarming features; for example, a stranger who suddenly approaches, a strange dog that barks, an unexpected noise heard in the dark. Commenting on the records made by parents over a period of twenty-one days of situations that aroused fear in their children, Jersild & Holmes ( 1935a) note that two or more of the following features were frequently reported to have been present together: noise, strange people or surroundings, the dark, sudden and unexpected movement, and being alone. Whereas a situation characterized by a single one of these features might only alert, when there are several present together fear, more or less severe, may well be aroused.
Because the response to a combination of features is often dramatically greater than, or different from, what it is to any one singly, it is proposed to refer to such situations as 'compound', a term chosen to echo the chemical analogue.
We have seen that situations that are especially likely to elicit fear not only during childhood but during later years also are those involving animals and those involving darkness. Their fear-arousing property, it seems likely, is to be explained by the fact that both types of situation commonly constitute a source of two or more of the potentially alarming features already considered. A discussion of how fear responses to these two types of situation develop during the early years will be found at the end of Chapter 10.
Being Alone
The situational feature of special interest to us in this work is, of course, being alone. Probably nothing increases the likelihood that fear will be aroused more than that. Finding oneself alone in a strange place, perhaps in darkness, and met by a sudden movement or mysterious sound, few of us would be unafraid.
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Were we to have with us even one stout companion, however, we should probably feel much braver; and given many our courage would quickly return. Being alone, like conscience, 'doth make cowards of us all'.
The immense difference made to a child who is in a potentially frightening situation by the presence of an adult was, it will be noted, taken for granted by Jersild & Holmes when they devised their experiments. Not only was the experimenter present with the child in all of them (except the first), but the scoring system was based on the extent to which a child required encouragement or support from the experimenter in carrying out the task. Had the experimenter not been present, it is evident, a far higher proportion of children would have
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been scored as having been afraid than were so scored. This is shown by the fact that, of the children scored as not having shown fear, many had carried out the task, for example to find the ball down the dark passage or to pat the dog, only after they had been given much reassurance and encouragement from the experimenter. Furthermore, almost all of those who were scored as having shown fear, because despite encouragement they refused to carry out the task on their own, were ready to do so when the experimenter accompanied them.
These findings are so much in keeping with common experience that it may seem absurd to labour them. Yet there is abundant evidence that, when psychologists and psychiatrists come to theorize about fear and anxiety, the significance of these phenomena is gravely underestimated. The same is true of most psychoanalysts, with Freud a conspicuous exception.
Fear behaviour and the development of attachment
As long ago as 1920 Watson & Rayner reported that it was not possible to elicit fear responses, which had been conditioned to a white rat, in a small boy of eleven months, Albert, so long as he had his thumb in his mouth; and in 1929 English described how a little girl of fourteen months showed no fear of strange objects as long as she was in her familiar high chair, though she became afraid of them when she was placed on the floor.
Others of these early workers also note the phenomenon. Valentine ( 1930) remarks that 'the presence of a companion is a well-known banisher of fear'. Freud's view, as presented for example in the Three Essays ( 1905b, SE 7: 224) and quoted at the head of Chapter 3, is not very different. In more recent times Laughlin ( 1956) has proposed a new term, 'soteria', as an
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obverse of phobia, to denote the intense sense of reassuring comfort that a person may get from a 'love object', be it toy, charm, or talisman.
There is still much to be learnt about the extent to which, at different ages, the situation in which a child finds himself in relation to his attachment figure affects the way he responds to stimuli that are potentially fear-arousing. A step towards greater understanding comes from the findings of Morgan & Ricciuti ( 1969). In their developmental study offear of strangers they show that, during the first eight months of life, little difference is made to the form or intensity of response by whether an infant is seated on his mother's lap or on a chair a few feet from her. Thereafter, however, and especially from twelve months of age, proximity to mother becomes a most important variable.
Morgan & Ricciuti studied eighty infants, falling into five age-groups (four and a half, six and a half, eight and a half, ten and a half, and twelve and a half months). Each infant was tested for his response to a stranger (a) seated on mother's lap and (b) when seated in a little chair four feet from her. After entering, the stranger 1 behaved according to a regular routine. First he sat silent but smiling about six feet from the infant; next he spoke to the infant; then he moved quietly to a distance of about two feet, where he knelt and talked further; finally, he touched the infant's hand. After a half-minute pause, the stranger began his withdrawal, proceeding as before but in reverse order. The infant's behaviour was observed from behind a one-way screen. Positive marks were given for smiling, babbling, cooing, and reaching out towards the stranger; negative marks for frowning, pouting, fussing, whimpering, crying,
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turning towards mother, and avoiding or withdrawing from the experimenter. Sobering or merely looking at the stranger or mother scored zero.
Three-quarters of the infants in the two youngest age-groups (four and a half and six and a half months) responded warmly to the stranger by smiling, cooing, and reaching out; and whether they were seated on mother's lap or not made little difference. Only one showed signs of fear. Infants in each of the three older
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1 Each infant was tested with two strangers, one male and one female. At each age-level
there was a tendency for the response to the male stranger to be less friendly and more fearful than that to the female. Whether this was due to the sex difference or to some other difference between them it is not possible to know.
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age-groups, however, were not only increasingly more likely to show fear but also increasingly more sensitive to mother's whereabouts. Thus, of those in the two intermediate agegroups (eight and a half and ten and a half months), a quarter withdrew or showed some other sign of fear; and of those aged twelve and a half months no fewer than half withdrew or were otherwise afraid. The effect of mother's whereabouts on the response was only just apparent in the two intermediate agegroups. In infants of twelve and a half months, however, it was abundantly clear. Only when seated on mother's lap did any of these one-year-olds welcome the stranger; when, by contrast, they were seated four feet from her, every one of them showed fear.
Rather similar findings are reported by Bronson (in press) from his short longitudinal study, referred to above (p. 100 ), of infants between three and nine months of age. He observed how the response to a stranger is influenced (a) by the infant's being held by mother and (b) by the infant's being able to see her.
At the age of four months there was little indication that being held by mother reduced wariness when the stranger approached to within two feet and called the baby. But by six and a half months being held by mother reduced wariness considerably and it did so at nine months also.
Presence of an infant's mother within sight, about four feet from him, made little difference to the degree of wariness of the stranger shown by the infant at four and a half or six and a half months. By the age of nine months, however, visual contact with mother was found to reduce wariness. Moreover, at that age it was not uncommon for a baby to crawl over to his mother when the stranger approached.
In the light of these findings it is instructive to consider afresh the much-quoted case of Albert on whom Watson & Rayner reported fifty years ago. In a series of experiments this eleven- month-old infant was conditioned to fear a white rat and, through generalization, a rabbit, a piece of seal fur, and human hair. The unconditioned stimulus was a loud noise made by hitting a long steel bar with a hammer just behind his head. Learning theorists have argued that many cases of phobia are to be traced to conditioning of this kind.
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Deductions drawn from the case have often been challenged (e. g. see Marks 1969). In the context of this work the following points deserve mention. First, Albert had been 'reared almost from birth in a hospital environment' and was selected for the
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experiment because he seemed so 'stolid and unemotional'. Second, the conditioning took place with Albert placed on a mattress on top of a small table, and with no familiar figure towards whom he could turn. Some of his responses, nevertheless, were those used by a child in turning to a mother figure: for example, raising his arms as if to be picked up and, later, burying his head in the mattress. In addition, Albert was very apt when upset to suck his thumb. To the experimenters this proved most inconvenient, since 'the moment the hand reached the mouth he became impervious to the stimuli producing fear. Again and again . . . we had to remove the thumb from his mouth before the conditioned response could be obtained. ' From these observations the experimenters themselves reached a very significant conclusion: 'the organism . . . apparently from birth, when under the influence of love stimuli, is blocked to all others. '
Thus the results of this early experiment by Watson & Rayner as well as those of the recent ones by Morgan & Ricciuti and by Bronson are consistent with the picture of the growth of attachment behaviour given in the first volume. They are consistent also with two findings by Schaffer described earlier in this one. The first (reported in Chapter 3) is that, before the age of twenty-eight weeks, infants do not protest when removed from mother to the strange surroundings of a hospital but that, from seven months onwards, they do so. The other finding (noted earlier in the present chapter) is that, whereas an infant of twelve months when confronted with strange objects refers constantly to his mother if she is seated behind him, an infant of six months appears oblivious of her being there.
Thus in general it can be said that, just as attachment to a mother figure is becoming steadily better organized during the latter half of the first year, so also is withdrawal from a feararousing situation. Furthermore, because by twelve months a child's cognitive equipment has developed sufficiently for him to be well able to take account of objects and situations briefly absent, he has become able so to organize his behaviour that he moves simultaneously both away from one type of situation and towards another type. Hence he enters his second year equipped to respond in the dual way that is typical of wellorganized fear behaviour. In the next chapter a description is given of how young monkeys pass through the same developmental phases but at a faster rate.
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Fear of Future Contingencies
In this chapter attention has been focused mainly on the nature of the immediate situations that can be observed to give rise to fear behaviour in children. Nevertheless, during the course of human life the situations that are apt to arouse fear include not only those that are actually present but others, more or less likely, that are forecast. Thus children and adults are frequently apprehensive about events that they believe may be going to occur and of objects and creatures that they suspect may be going to appear. Such fear is concerned with future contingencies.
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Because so many of the situations feared by humans are of that nature and because they bulk so very large in clinical work, it is necessary to examine them in some detail. This is done in Chapters 10 and 11, after the immediate situations that arouse fear behaviour have been considered in the light of the behaviour's biological function.
We turn now to consider what is known about situations that arouse fear in animals. -123-
Chapter 8 Situations that Arouse Fear in Animals
Natural clues to potential danger
Although the stimulus situations that arouse fear in other species are not identical with those that arouse fear in humans, there is much overlap. Overlaps are especially evident, moreover, in the case of the non-human primates, to which much of this chapter is given.
Ethologists take for granted that many of the stimulus situations that arouse fear in animals can be regarded as naturally occurring clues to events that constitute a potential danger to the species in question. This applies especially to situations that arouse fear on the first occasion that an individual encounters them.
Distance receptors are commonly employed for sensing these naturally occurring clues. Depending on the species, an animal may rely mainly on visual clues and receptors, mainly on auditory ones, or mainly on olfactory ones; or on any combination of them. 1 Only when the distance receptors have failed to detect potential dangers in time are the proximal receptors, those for touch and pain, called into action -- and by then it may be too late. Thus, in eliciting fear behaviour, distal clues and distance receptors play a crucial role.
Of all the possible stimulus situations that could act as clues to potential danger and can be sensed at a distance, there are certain ones that are exploited by a very wide array of species. Among the best known are strangeness and sudden approach, both of which regularly evoke fear responses in birds and mammals. Another is the 'visual cliff' to which young mammals of all species so far tested respond by taking avoiding action.
Situations of other kinds, by contrast, arouse fear responses in animals of only a few species; and sometimes, perhaps, of only one. For example, in some species of bird the sight of mammalian fur elicits fear responses; in others, the sight of a pair of staring eyes or of something falling from the sky. In some
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1 For discussions of fear responses in animals see Tinbergen ( 1957), Marler & Hamilton (
1966), and Hinde ( 1970). -124-
species of night-flying moth the high-pitched echolocating calls of predator bats lead to instant flight or, alternatively, to 'catalepsy'. Thus, like drugs, the naturally occurring distal clues to potential danger can be classified into 'broad-spectrum' clues, to which animals of a
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wide array of species are sensitive, and 'narrow-spectrum' clues, to which animals of only one or a few species are sensitive.
Many of the alarm calls of birds and mammals act as broadspectrum clues since they are responded to with fear not only by members of the species that emits them but by members of other species as well. This is in part because the alarm calls of different species have come to resemble each other, presumably through a process of natural selection.
In a number of animal species olfactory stimuli, some of broad but many of narrow spectrum, are especially effective in eliciting fear behaviour. Such 'warning scents' arise from one of two sources: from enemies or from friends. On the one hand, as is well known, the scent of an approaching predator, man or wolf, can elicit fear responses in a broad array of grazing mammals, zebras, deer, and antelope. On the other, an 'alarm scent' emitted by an animal when frightened or wounded can elicit fear responses in other animals (exactly as an alarm call can), but in this case the effect is likely to be confined to members of its own species.
Thus animals of every species are born genetically biased so to develop that they respond with one or another form of fear behaviour whenever they sense a stimulus situation that serves as a naturally occurring clue to one of the particular dangers that beset members of their species. Since some categories of potential danger are common for a wide array of species, clues to them act as broad-spectrum clues. Since other potential dangers affect only a few species, clues to them are likely to be narrow-spectrum.
Just as in man the forms of behaviour that can conveniently be labelled as fear behaviour are diverse, so are they in nonhuman species. Responses include, on the one hand, crouching, curling up, freezing and taking cover, and, on the other, calling, escaping, and seeking proximity to companions. The precise response shown turns on many factors -- the animal's species, its sex and age, its physiological condition, and also the particular type of situation that has aroused the fear.
For example, Hinde ( 1970) reports a finding by Hogan that, in chicks, withdrawal occurs from stimuli at high intensity (and
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some others) whereas freezing is elicited by stimuli that are strange, novel, or surprising. Again, both Lorenz ( 1937) and Tinbergen ( 1957) have pointed out how, in many species of bird, distinctive situations can elicit distinctive sorts of response. The Burmese jungle fowl (and also the domestic chicken) possess two distinct warning calls uttered in response to the sight, respectively, of a flying raptor and a terrestrial predator. When heard by another fowl, the raptor-type warning call elicits a downwards escape, ending, where possible, beneath cover of some kind. When, by contrast, the predator-type warning call is heard a fowl takes off and flies into a tree. These distinctive types of behaviour in response to distinctive warning calls are further evidence that, as is indicated in Chapter 6, we are dealing, not with some single and comprehensive 'instinct of fear', but with a heterogeneous collection of interrelated forms of behaviour, each elicited by a slightly different set of causal conditions.
Fear behaviour, it has been emphasized, may not only remove an animal from situations of certain kinds but take it towards, or into, situations of other kinds. Depending on the warning call heard, a fowl flies into ground cover or into a tree. A form of behaviour shown by
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animals of a great many species, and one of especial interest to our thesis, is movement that takes an animal towards his companions. For example, when a peregrine is overhead, lapwings not only take flight but keep close together as a flock; starlings do the same. (By contrast, in the same situation partridges crouch close to the ground. ) Most of the group-living mammals also edge closer together when alarmed. Movement of this kind is particularly evident in young mammals which, with only few exceptions, habitually run to mother and stay close to her.
Let us return now to the situations that arouse fear. It is probable that all the examples of distant situations mentioned so far in this chapter are responded to by fear behaviour of one kind or another on the very first occasion that an individual of a particular species encounters them. In such cases no special opportunities for learning that the situation is potentially dangerous are required. In the case of other stimulus situations, however, the position is quite different. Only after the situation has become associated with some other clue to potential danger is a fear response aroused. A clue universally known to lead to such learnt associations, though not the only one, is pain.
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Pain receptors are proximal and therefore their role is in many ways different from that of the distal receptors. In the first place, pain receptors are usually called into action as a last resort and only when the distal receptors, or the fear responses they may have elicited, have failed to ensure the animal's withdrawal. In the second place, the sensation of pain leads commonly to immediate and urgent action. In the third place, the sensation of pain may well mean that the danger has already materialized. For these reasons it is easy to suppose that pain and danger are in some way identical, which of course is not the case (see next chapter), and thus to give pain far too great a prominence in theories of fear behaviour.
Because by being a proximal clue to potential danger pain is very late in acting, it is of great biological advantage to an animal to learn to recognize potentially painful situations from associated distal clues. The investigation of such learning has for long been a principal interest of experimental psychologists, and in consequence much is known about it. In particular, it has long been known from conditioning experiments in which a neutral stimulus is coupled with a painful one that, in a great variety of mammalian species, a fear response to a stimulus hitherto neutral is both quickly established and very hard to extinguish.
A high concentration of interest on the fear-arousing properties of pain, and on the learning to which it gives rise, has at times led to a neglect of the immensely important and prior role of distal clues and distal receptors, both in animals and in man. As a result it is not always realized that in many species a new distal clue to potential danger can be learnt as readily by watching how companions respond to it, and then copying them, as by its becoming associated with pain. In mammals, indeed, a principal means whereby new situations come to be categorized as potentially dangerous, and so to be responded to by fear behaviour, is that of copying older animals, especially parents. In no kinds of mammal does imitative behaviour of this sort play so large a part as it does in primates.
The fear-eliciting properties of an approaching or looming object have probably been underestimated in the past; and it seems likely that, in some of the experiments on an infant's response to strangers and to novel objects, approach of the stranger or object has played a larger part in determining a fear response than the experimenters realized.
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A stimulus condition related to looming and approach is darkness. During the first year of life, fear of darkness, which is common in later years, is not very evident. Even so, by the age of ten months, infants are more likely to leave mother to enter and explore a brightly illuminated room than a dimly lit one ( Rheingold & Eckerman 1970).
Fear of an Anticipated Situation
Yet another situation that arouses fear, observable towards the end of the first year but not earlier, is when a baby uses current clues to anticipate something unpleasant. Levy ( 1951) describes the behaviour of babies of different ages when they catch sight of a doctor preparing to repeat an injection first given a few weeks earlier. Before eleven months of age only a very occasional infant was observed to react with fear. At ages eleven and twelve months, however, one-quarter of the sample did so. In such cases, it seems probable, learning from experience has occurred.
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Thus by the end of the first year an infant is withdrawing in an organized way when he perceives any of a number of stimulus situations that can be regarded as naturally occurring clues to potentially dangerous situations. Further, he has learnt a good deal about his perceptual world. Towards the familiar and the strange, and towards what he has learnt is agreeable and what disagreeable, he is behaving with a rough-and-ready discrimination. He moves towards the one and away from the other.
Fear-arousing situations: the second and later years Sources of Data
It has already been noted how few researchers have made systematic attempts to study the situations that commonly arouse fear in humans. Most of the few data published during recent decades come from various longitudinal studies of children developing. Examples are a study by Macfarlane, Allen & Honzik ( 1954) of about one hundred children in California and another by Newson & Newson ( 1968) of 700 children and their parents in an English urban community. In none of these studies, however, was the nature of the situations that arouse fear at the centre of interest, nor was the information reported obtained either from direct observation or from interview of the children themselves. The latter limitation applies also to the findings of a cross-sectional study of nearly 500 children undertaken by Lapouse & Monk ( 1959) in New York State. 1 In all these projects information came only from mothers.
Because of the paucity of recently gathered data it is necessary to turn to the results of work done during the early years of child development research.
Some forty years ago an American psychologist, A. T. Jersild, began a series of studies in which he set out to describe the kinds of situation in which children exhibit fear, and how these change as a child grows older. 2 Different methods of obtaining information were employed in different studies. The four main methods were: day-to-day recording by parents; simple experiments; interviewing children about situations of which
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1 A representative sample, distinct from the smaller sample referred to on p. 98 above.
2 Jersild's principal studies are published as monographs: Jersild Markey & Jersild ( 1933)
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and Jersild & Holmes ( 1935a). Abstracts of these and other studies with full references are in the symposium on Child Behavior and Development edited by Barker, Kounin & Wright ( 1943), and also in Jersild ( 1947)
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they were currently afraid; giving questionnaires to adults about what they recalled of the situations that made them afraid as children. The subjects of each study were different and were drawn from different age-ranges. Despite a number of shortcomings, these studies are still much the most extensive yet attempted and therefore remain principal sources. Not only do the findings conform with ordinary experience, but at a number of points they are supported and amplified both by earlier (e. g. Hagman 1932) and by more recent work.
Findings from Parents' Records and Naturalistic Observations
The aim of one of Jersild's studies was to obtain a detailed record of the occasions and situations in which ordinary children exhibit fear during the course of their everyday lives. To this end the parents of over one hundred young children were enlisted, all of whom were prepared to keep detailed records of every occasion on which their child showed fear during a period lasting twenty-one days. Mimeographed forms and instructions were issued. On each occasion that a child showed fear parents were asked to record: (a) the actual behaviour exhibited (e. g. startle, withdrawing, turning to an adult, cries or other vocalizations, and words spoken); (b) the situation in which the behaviour occurred, in terms not only of its apparent cause (specific stimulus) but of the setting (place, time, what child was doing, persons present); and (c) the child's current condition (well or ill, fresh or tired).
In all, 136 records were obtained of children between twelve and fifty-nine months of age (the records of a few younger and older children were too few to give useful results). The sample was biased towards the higher end of the socio-economic scale. A majority lived in a large city, but there were also children living in suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. Distribution by age was as follows: second year, twenty-three children; third year, forty-five; fourth year, forty-six; and fifth year, twenty-two children.
The authors were struck by how few were the occurrences of fear recorded by the parents of children in these age-groups, a finding confirmed when observations were made of some of the same children in a nursery school. The occurrences recorded during the three weeks for children in the two younger agegroups averaged only six per child, or two a week. For children in the two older age-groups the average was three and a half per child, or barely more than one a week. For about one in
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ten of the children at each age-level no occurrence of fear was recorded throughout the three- week period. Although these figures suggest that some occurrences of slight or transient fear may have gone unrecorded, there is independent evidence that at least some children during their second year show fear very infrequently. For example, Valentine ( 1930), who kept daily notes on his children, was impressed by the infrequency with which he saw fear responses in them and describes how surprised he was when a child who had fallen and hurt himself would none the less immediately go climbing again. Anderson ( 1972a), who observed fifty-two children between the ages of twelve months and three years two months in a London park,
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also remarks how infrequently the children exhibited fear. Occurrences, he reports, were 'uncommon and short-lived'. It should, however, be noted that in both these studies and also in Jersild's the children observed were not alone. The difference made by presence or absence of a trusted adult cannot be exaggerated (see the final section of this chapter). When we turn to examine the kinds of situation that are reported to arouse fear we find remarkably little change between the second and the fifth years. From the mother's day-to-day records reported by Jersild six situations stand out as being likely to arouse fear at least occasionally in a fairly large proportion of the children at each age-level:
--noise, and events associated with noise
--heights
--strange people or familiar people in strange guise --strange objects and surroundings
--animals
--pain or persons associated with pain.
In each of these six situations some 40 per cent of all the children were recorded as having shown fear behaviour on some occasion during the three-week spell. In so far as there was any reduction with age in the proportion of children showing fear the reduction occurred after the third birthday. 1
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1 When analysed by age the picture from these six situations is as follows. Of the one-year-
olds, 60 per cent were recorded as having shown fear of noise, 52 per cent fear of pain or potential pain, and from 35 to 40 per cent as having shown fear in each of the other four situations, of which one was the presence of animals. Of the four-year-olds, only 23 per cent were recorded as having shown fear of noise and events
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Among the many other situations recorded as having aroused fear, but in a smaller percentage of these children, were sudden unexpected movements, especially when an object was both approaching and noisy, and also bright lights, flashes, etc. Together, these kinds of situation elicited fear in nearly 30 per cent of the one- and two-year-olds; but of the older children no more than about 10 per cent had shown fear in those situations. The dark, especially being alone in the dark, was recorded as having aroused fear in about 10 per cent of the children during the three-week period of observation: here there was no change with age. Fear of being left alone or abandoned was recorded for about 10 per cent of the children at each of the age- levels. Only after the second birthday were any of the children recorded as having shown fear of imaginary creatures, the proportion being about 6 per cent. The origin and nature of such fears are discussed in Chapters 10 and 11.
The forms of behaviour recorded as shown by these children when afraid differed very little between the younger and the older ones. The behaviour most frequently recorded was crying in its various forms, from whimpering to screaming and including explicit cries for help. In each age-group no less than onethird of the episodes of fear recorded by mothers were signalled by crying of one sort or another. Another form of behaviour also frequently recorded was either turning towards an adult or running to him or her, with or without clinging: in each age-group about one-sixth of the fear-producing situations were said to elicit behaviour of that sort. Avoiding action or running away was recorded in about one-fifth of the episodes. In the remainder, fear was inferred because a child trembled or jumped, showed a frightened
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expression, hid his head, or stayed unwontedly still. Occasionally a child was aggressive, or protective of another.
In this catalogue of forms of behaviour held by mothers to be indicative of fear it should be noted that two of the commonest are crying for or turning towards a protective figure. This finding resembles that of Anderson ( 1972a) when he interviewed the mothers of eighteen two-year-olds in London. The forms of fear behaviour most commonly described to him were screaming, crying, turning to mother, clinging to or
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associated with noise, but no fewer than 40 per cent had shown fear of animals, the same percentage as for the one-year-olds. In each of the other situations, however, including the possibility of pain, only about 15 per cent of the four-year-olds had shown fear.
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following mother, and staying close to her. Withdrawing from the frightening object was referred to less frequently.
When, however, Anderson was himself observing the fear behaviour of another but very similar sample of toddlers while they were with mother in a London park (see p. 107 above), rather different forms of fear behaviour were seen. In the dozen episodes observed, the fear- arousing object was an approaching animal (eight cases), an approaching child (three cases), and noise (one case). In such conditions a toddler would suddenly cease his activity, back away from whatever it was that was frightening him while continuing to fixate it, and simultaneously edge towards his mother. Crying was not observed. Once the object had moved away, the child would advance again but continue to fixate it.
The differences in forms of behaviour exhibited turn presumably on the intensity of fear. At high intensity crying and clinging are common; at low intensity withdrawing from the object and backing towards mother.
A limitation of records kept by parents and also of naturalistic observations such as those of Anderson is that, when a child is not described as having shown fear of a particular class of situation during the period his behaviour was recorded, it remains uncertain whether he is never afraid in such situations or whether it just happened that during that span of time he was never confronted by one when his mother or the observer was about. The experiments devised by Jersild & Holmes help to clarify this matter, though they too have obvious limitations.
Experimental Findings
It is evident that ethical considerations limit severely the kinds of experiment it is legitimate to do in order to explore the situations that arouse fear in humans, especially in young children.
In their experimental work with children between their second and sixth birthdays, therefore, Jersild & Holmes took many precautions. In the first place, each child was throughout with an adult who was experienced with children, and who had made a friendly contact with him before the experiments began. In the second, each situation with which a child was confronted
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was one that many children hardly find frightening. In the third, a child was introduced to the situation by easy stages. And finally, if a child refused to take part, the experiment was ended.
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There were eight potentially fear-provoking situations. Four were presented on the first day, extending over about fifteen minutes; two on the day following; and two about four weeks later. For a few minutes between each fear-inducing situation a child was allowed to play with toys. Since it appears that the situations were presented to every child in the same order, there is a serious possibility that responses to later situations may have been influenced by the experience of earlier ones; though in which direction such influence may have been exerted it is difficult to know. On the one hand is the possibility that, through habituation, responses to later situations may have been less than they would otherwise have been. On the other is the possibility that, as the series progressed, a child may have become increasingly sensitized and therefore have shown more fear in some of the later situations than he would otherwise have done. The finding that a larger proportion of children showed fear in the later experimental situations than in the earlier ones is in keeping with the latter possibility. The eight situations were chosen because earlier studies had shown that they were likely to elicit at least a little fear in a substantial proportion of young children. Details are as follows:
1. Being left alone: When the child is seated at a table playing with a toy, the experimenter names a pretext for leaving the room (which until the time of the experiment was unfamiliar to the child). The experimenter remains outside the room for two minutes. The child's behaviour is recorded by concealed observers.
2. Sudden displacement or loss of support: A bridge-like piece of apparatus, consisting of two boards laid end to end at a height of about two inches above the floor, was used. The first board is securely supported, but when the child steps onto the second board, which is supported only at the middle, it gives way and descends to the floor.
3. Dark passage: While playing ball with the child, the experimenter seemingly inadvertently throws the ball into a dark passage, 18 ft long, leading from one corner of the room. The child is asked to retrieve the ball.
4. Strange person: While the child is temporarily withdrawn from the room an assistant, dressed in a long grey coat, a large black hat, and a veil that obscures her features, seats herself in one of the two chairs near the entrance. The child
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returns and his reactions are observed when he notices the stranger and when he is asked to obtain toys placed near the stranger's chair.
5. High board: A board 12 in. wide, about 8 ft long, and 2 in. thick, held firmly in place at the ends by two stationary holders, is arranged at various heights from the ground and the child is asked to walk from one end of the board to the other to obtain a box of brightly coloured toys. The board is first placed at a distance of four feet from the floor; it is subsequently lowered if the child refuses to walk across at this height and is raised if he performs at the four-foot level.
6. Loud sound: An iron pipe 2 ft long and 2 1/4 in. diameter, suspended from the ceiling in a corner of the room behind a screen, is struck a sharp blow with a hammer while the child and the experimenter are seated at a table containing toys. The child's response to the unexpected noise from an unseen source is first observed and then, pointing to the screen, the experimenter asks the child to 'Go and see what made that noise'.
7. Snake: A snake, harmless and about 2 ft long, was placed in a box sufficiently deep to 93
ensure that it could not immediately climb out when the top was removed. In the box was placed a small coloured toy. The child's attention is directed to the box, the lid is uncovered, and the child is allowed to look in; if he raises any questions the experimenter simply says 'It is a snake', and then points to the toy and asks the child to reach in and get the toy.
8. Large dog: While the child is seated at a table with toys a large collie dog is brought into the room on a leash by a familiar person. The dog is led to a certain point in the room and, after preliminary comment by the experimenter, the child is asked to go and pat the dog.
The subjects were 105 children, half from a private nursery school for better-off families and half from a public nursery school for poorer families. Fifty-seven were boys and fortyeight girls. Children were tested only when they were fit, willing, and in a good humour; and the experiments were never combined with any other sort of examination. On each occasion when tests were carried out, two-year-olds and three-yearolds were well represented (never fewer than twenty-one children tested and usually between thirty and forty-five); but
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four-year-olds and five-year-olds were rather few (numbers tested varied between seven and fourteen children). Each experiment, except the first, was presented to a child in four stages: first he was given directions what to do; then, if he was hesitant, he was given reassurance and encouragement; then, if he still refrained, the experimenter offered to accompany him in the task; finally, if a child was still reluctant to take part, the experiment was abandoned. A child's performance was scored on a five-point scale:
0 performs without hesitation
1 performs after hesitation and with caution
2 performs alone, but only after protesting and seeking reassurance 3 refuses to perform alone but does so when accompanied
4 complete refusal.
Good reliability was obtained between independent observers.
In presenting their findings Jersild & Holmes use stringent criteria for their assessment of fear: only refusal to perform alone and refusal to perform at all (categories 3 and 4) were held to be responses indicative of fear. Had the children who performed alone but only after seeking reassurance (category 2) been included also, the percentages showing fear responses would, the authors report, have been raised by about onethird. Results are given in the table below.
5? 0-5? 11 21-13
Proportions of children showing (categories 3 and 4) in experimental situationsa
fear responses Age: 2? 0-2? 11 3? 0-3? 11 4? 0-4? 11
Situation N:b 21-33 28-45 7-14 %%%%
1 Left alone 12 16 7 0
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Proportions of children showing fear (categories 3 and 4) in experimental situationsa
responses
4? 0-4? 11 5? 0-5? 11 7-14 21-13
0
0
0
0
0
43
not tested
Situation
2. Loss of support 3. Dark passage 4. Strange person 5. High board
Age: 2? 0-2? 11 N:b 21-33
24 9 47 51 31 22 36 36 23 20 35 56 62 43
3? 0-3? 11 28-45
0
36
12
7
14
43
43
6. Loud sound
7. Snake
8. Large dog
aSource: Jersild & Holmes ( 1935a). bNumber of children varies by experiments.
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The proportion of children showing fear according
differs little when two-year-olds are compared with three-year-olds. After the fourth birthday, however, there is a marked reduction, which becomes particularly noticeable after the fifth birthday. Because, as remarked earlier, the experimental situations were presented to each child in the same order, it is difficult to be confident how they compare with each other in their fearinducing potential. The three situations that stand out in the series as being frightening to a high proportion of children up to the fifth birthday are nos. 3, 7, and 8: the dark passage, the snake, and the large dog. In each of these situations never less than one-third of the children refused to perform alone, and in certain groups more than half refused. When the children who were scored in category 2, having performed only after receiving reassurance and encouragement, are included the percentages range from about 50 to 80 per cent. And had the children who hesitated and performed with caution (category 1) been included also, an overwhelming majority would have been found to have exhibited some trace of fear in these three situations. Thus, even when the proviso about the effects of test order is borne in mind, the experiments go some way towards confirming a commonly held view that a very large proportion of young children are apt to be afraid of the dark and of animals.
The Findings in Relation to Age
A study of the data reviewed so far suggests that, if we leave aside fear of separation as a special problem, the whole medley of situations that can be observed to arouse fear in children during their first five years can be listed in four main categories, whose fear-arousing properties vary to some extent with the age of the children:
a. Noise and situations associated with noise; sudden change of illumination and sudden
unexpected movement; an object approaching; and height. These situations are especially 95
to these criteria in these experiments
liable to arouse fear during the first, second, and third years of life.
b. Strange people and familiar people in strange guise; strange objects and strange places.
Strangeness is especially liable to arouse fear during the last quarter of the first year -113-
and through the second and third years, and then tends to diminish.
c. Animals: not only did animals commonly elicit fear in children of each of the age-groups for which parents kept records (35 per cent in the second year and 40 per cent or above in the older children), but the presence of an animal was the experimental situation that aroused fear most frequently. All other relevant studies, some to be described shortly, also report a high incidence of fear of animals.
d. Darkness, especially being alone in the dark. Occurrences of fear in such situations were recorded by mothers for about 20 per cent of the children at each age-level, and, if anything, the incidence seems to rise with age. Furthermore, fear of the dark and of being alone in the dark was seen in about half the children tested in the experimental situations. Again, as with fear of animals, a high incidence of fear in these situations is reported in several other studies.
The situations listed in categories (a) and (b) above are simple and require little or no learning. They tend to elicit fear in the youngest children especially and to do so less as children get older. Those in categories (c) and (d) are more complex and may include some reference to potential events. The fear-inducing properties of these situations do not diminish during the early years of childhood; indeed, those of some situations tend to increase.
These conclusions regarding changes with age are based on the cross-sectional studies discussed so far, in which each agegroup comprises a distinct group of children. It is therefore reassuring to find that they are confirmed when a single group of children is followed longitudinally over a period of a year or more.
In another of their many studies Jersild & Holmes ( 1935b), relying on information from parents, compared changes in situations feared in a sample of forty-seven children (thirtythree aged initially three or four years and fourteen aged initially five or six years). The follow-up period varied between thirteen and thirty-five months for different children. As they got older, many children earlier reported to be afraid of noise, sudden change of stimulation, strangeness and strangers were reported as no longer afraid.
Conversely, children who had earlier not been reported as afraid of the dark or of anticipated events, such as accidents or robbers, were later reported to have
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become so. These shifts are in keeping with a child's increasing, though still very limited, capacities for appraising current events in terms of their significance for the future, a topic considered further in Chapter 10.
A Note on Fear of Strangers
The tendency for something or someone strange to elicit fear has been much discussed. Whether fear is or is not aroused in a particular instance evidently turns on a great number of conditions that are still not fully understood. In his observations of toddlers in a park with mother (see p. 107 above), what impressed Anderson was that the presence of a passing
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stranger seemed to go almost unnoticed. On the other hand, in his discussions with mothers of another group of toddlers (see p. 108 above), he found that eight out of eighteen children were reported as having at some time shown fear of a stranger. This information was volunteered spontaneously by the mothers who had plainly been much struck by it. The most usual situation was when a relative or friend, well known to mother but perhaps little known to the child, visited. Unlike total strangers, who would naturally stay at a distance, relatives and friends are apt to approach mother and child enthusiastically, and mother herself reciprocates. It was in situations likely to have been of this kind that a number of the children had become very frightened. (Not infrequently, some unusual aspect of the visitor was picked upon -- spectacles, wrinkles, beard, or a loud voice. ) The conclusion to which Anderson's findings point is that what young children find especially frightening is the combination of strangeness and approach (cf. the findings of Morgan & Ricciuti ( 1969) described on p. 120 below).
If that conclusion is correct, it would go some way to explain why the children studied by Heinicke & Westheimer ( 1966) in a residential nursery so often showed fear of the observer (see Chapter 1 above, pp. 9 - 10 ). First, the children were without mother; second, the observer remained a relative stranger to them; third, the observer 'actively though cautiously approached the child to see how he would react'.
Fear of Animals and of the Dark
It is remarkable with what regularity being afraid of animals and of the dark is reported for children from the age of three years upwards. In the Macfarlane longitudinal study, for example, more than 90 per cent of the hundred children in the
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sample were reported by mother to have shown fear of some specific situation at one or another age during the period in which they were studied, which was from the age of twenty- one months to fourteen years. At each yearly examination up to the age of eleven years between one-third and one-half of the children were reported as having shown fear of a particular situation; and of the situations most frequently reported as feared, dogs and the dark were the commonest, especially in the younger age-groups ( Macfarlane, Allen & Honzik 1954). Comparable findings, also based on mothers' reports, are presented by Lapouse & Monk ( 1959) who made a crosssectional study of a representative sample of 482 children between the ages of six and twelve years in New York State.
Similar findings emerge again from two further studies conducted by Jersild. In one of them he and his colleagues interviewed some four hundred children between the ages of five and twelve years (twenty-five boys and twenty-five girls at each of eight age-levels). Starting each interview on neutral topics the interviewer went on to inquire of the child about the things that scared or frightened him. In a second, questionnaires were issued to some three hundred students and members of staff aged between seventeen and thirty-five years (mostly between eighteen and twenty-six). Subjects were asked to describe situations that had frightened them as children and to indicate which was the earliest they could remember, which they were most intensely afraid of, and which they were most persistently afraid of; a single situation might of course qualify under all three heads.
The situations that these adults recalled as having aroused fear were closely in line with those described by the five- to twelve-year-old children. In both groups fear of animals bulked
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large. Among the children it was clearly highest at the younger age-levels: fear of animals was described by 27 per cent of the five- and six-year-olds, by 22 per cent of the seven- and eightyear-olds, and by 11 per cent of the older children. Among the adults, about one in six reported fear of animals as the earliest fear they recalled, and /or the most intense and/or the most persistent.
Fear of the dark is frequently a mixture of being afraid when alone in the dark, especially of strange noises or other happenings, and being afraid of being attacked in the dark, perhaps by imaginary creatures, such as ghosts or characters out of story-books, or perhaps by burglars and kidnappers. Being
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afraid in such situations and ways was reported by about 20 per cent of the five- to twelve- year-olds, the incidence not changing greatly with age, and it was recalled also by about the same proportion of young adults; among the latter fear of the dark resembled fear of animals in being recollected as having been very intense and very persistent.
Fear of Damage, Illness, Death
In both series some 10 per cent of subjects reported or recalled being afraid of getting damaged in an accident or a fight, though fear of pain as such was rarely mentioned.
Fear of becoming ill or dying was conspicuous by its infrequency. It was mentioned by none of the 200 children under nine years of age and by only six of the 200 from nine to twelve. About 3 per cent of the young adults recalled fear of illness or death as their most intense or their most persistent fear. Absence of fear of death among children under ten is in keeping with Anthony's study reported in The Child's Discovery of Death ( 1940). After examining the steps by which a child gradually acquires the concept of death as an irreversible departure, Anthony concludes that death acquires its emotional significance through its equation with separation (see Appendix I, p. 384 n).
Fear of the illness or death of a parent was rarely mentioned by either the children or adults questioned by Jersild; the proportion was about 3 per cent in each group.
It is interesting to note how infrequently the situations observed most regularly to arouse fear during the first two or three years of life are referred to by the older children or recalled by the young adults. In neither series do more than 5 per cent of the subjects report or recall being afraid of noise, sudden movement, falling, strange objects or strange people--so long as it is light. During darkness, however, as already described, the position is very different.
Clinicians will inevitably be sceptical whether interviews, even if skilfully conducted, or questionnaires can possibly elicit from either children or young adults an accurate and comprehensive account of all the situations that frighten or have frightened them. The fact that the younger children (five- and six-year-olds) described fewer such situations than did the older ones suggests, indeed, that their accounts were especially inadequate. Nevertheless, though some fear-arousing situations
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were no doubt under-reported, it seems probable that such positive information as was given can be regarded as valid.
In this chapter all that is attempted is a description of the situations that commonly arouse fear in humans and a rough indication of how these situations tend to change as a child grows towards adulthood. Possible explanations of the findings are postponed until later chapters. Meanwhile there is more to be said about the situations themselves.
Compound situations
Again and again it is found that a child or adult is especially apt to be frightened in a situation characterized by two or more potentially alarming features; for example, a stranger who suddenly approaches, a strange dog that barks, an unexpected noise heard in the dark. Commenting on the records made by parents over a period of twenty-one days of situations that aroused fear in their children, Jersild & Holmes ( 1935a) note that two or more of the following features were frequently reported to have been present together: noise, strange people or surroundings, the dark, sudden and unexpected movement, and being alone. Whereas a situation characterized by a single one of these features might only alert, when there are several present together fear, more or less severe, may well be aroused.
Because the response to a combination of features is often dramatically greater than, or different from, what it is to any one singly, it is proposed to refer to such situations as 'compound', a term chosen to echo the chemical analogue.
We have seen that situations that are especially likely to elicit fear not only during childhood but during later years also are those involving animals and those involving darkness. Their fear-arousing property, it seems likely, is to be explained by the fact that both types of situation commonly constitute a source of two or more of the potentially alarming features already considered. A discussion of how fear responses to these two types of situation develop during the early years will be found at the end of Chapter 10.
Being Alone
The situational feature of special interest to us in this work is, of course, being alone. Probably nothing increases the likelihood that fear will be aroused more than that. Finding oneself alone in a strange place, perhaps in darkness, and met by a sudden movement or mysterious sound, few of us would be unafraid.
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Were we to have with us even one stout companion, however, we should probably feel much braver; and given many our courage would quickly return. Being alone, like conscience, 'doth make cowards of us all'.
The immense difference made to a child who is in a potentially frightening situation by the presence of an adult was, it will be noted, taken for granted by Jersild & Holmes when they devised their experiments. Not only was the experimenter present with the child in all of them (except the first), but the scoring system was based on the extent to which a child required encouragement or support from the experimenter in carrying out the task. Had the experimenter not been present, it is evident, a far higher proportion of children would have
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been scored as having been afraid than were so scored. This is shown by the fact that, of the children scored as not having shown fear, many had carried out the task, for example to find the ball down the dark passage or to pat the dog, only after they had been given much reassurance and encouragement from the experimenter. Furthermore, almost all of those who were scored as having shown fear, because despite encouragement they refused to carry out the task on their own, were ready to do so when the experimenter accompanied them.
These findings are so much in keeping with common experience that it may seem absurd to labour them. Yet there is abundant evidence that, when psychologists and psychiatrists come to theorize about fear and anxiety, the significance of these phenomena is gravely underestimated. The same is true of most psychoanalysts, with Freud a conspicuous exception.
Fear behaviour and the development of attachment
As long ago as 1920 Watson & Rayner reported that it was not possible to elicit fear responses, which had been conditioned to a white rat, in a small boy of eleven months, Albert, so long as he had his thumb in his mouth; and in 1929 English described how a little girl of fourteen months showed no fear of strange objects as long as she was in her familiar high chair, though she became afraid of them when she was placed on the floor.
Others of these early workers also note the phenomenon. Valentine ( 1930) remarks that 'the presence of a companion is a well-known banisher of fear'. Freud's view, as presented for example in the Three Essays ( 1905b, SE 7: 224) and quoted at the head of Chapter 3, is not very different. In more recent times Laughlin ( 1956) has proposed a new term, 'soteria', as an
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obverse of phobia, to denote the intense sense of reassuring comfort that a person may get from a 'love object', be it toy, charm, or talisman.
There is still much to be learnt about the extent to which, at different ages, the situation in which a child finds himself in relation to his attachment figure affects the way he responds to stimuli that are potentially fear-arousing. A step towards greater understanding comes from the findings of Morgan & Ricciuti ( 1969). In their developmental study offear of strangers they show that, during the first eight months of life, little difference is made to the form or intensity of response by whether an infant is seated on his mother's lap or on a chair a few feet from her. Thereafter, however, and especially from twelve months of age, proximity to mother becomes a most important variable.
Morgan & Ricciuti studied eighty infants, falling into five age-groups (four and a half, six and a half, eight and a half, ten and a half, and twelve and a half months). Each infant was tested for his response to a stranger (a) seated on mother's lap and (b) when seated in a little chair four feet from her. After entering, the stranger 1 behaved according to a regular routine. First he sat silent but smiling about six feet from the infant; next he spoke to the infant; then he moved quietly to a distance of about two feet, where he knelt and talked further; finally, he touched the infant's hand. After a half-minute pause, the stranger began his withdrawal, proceeding as before but in reverse order. The infant's behaviour was observed from behind a one-way screen. Positive marks were given for smiling, babbling, cooing, and reaching out towards the stranger; negative marks for frowning, pouting, fussing, whimpering, crying,
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turning towards mother, and avoiding or withdrawing from the experimenter. Sobering or merely looking at the stranger or mother scored zero.
Three-quarters of the infants in the two youngest age-groups (four and a half and six and a half months) responded warmly to the stranger by smiling, cooing, and reaching out; and whether they were seated on mother's lap or not made little difference. Only one showed signs of fear. Infants in each of the three older
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1 Each infant was tested with two strangers, one male and one female. At each age-level
there was a tendency for the response to the male stranger to be less friendly and more fearful than that to the female. Whether this was due to the sex difference or to some other difference between them it is not possible to know.
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age-groups, however, were not only increasingly more likely to show fear but also increasingly more sensitive to mother's whereabouts. Thus, of those in the two intermediate agegroups (eight and a half and ten and a half months), a quarter withdrew or showed some other sign of fear; and of those aged twelve and a half months no fewer than half withdrew or were otherwise afraid. The effect of mother's whereabouts on the response was only just apparent in the two intermediate agegroups. In infants of twelve and a half months, however, it was abundantly clear. Only when seated on mother's lap did any of these one-year-olds welcome the stranger; when, by contrast, they were seated four feet from her, every one of them showed fear.
Rather similar findings are reported by Bronson (in press) from his short longitudinal study, referred to above (p. 100 ), of infants between three and nine months of age. He observed how the response to a stranger is influenced (a) by the infant's being held by mother and (b) by the infant's being able to see her.
At the age of four months there was little indication that being held by mother reduced wariness when the stranger approached to within two feet and called the baby. But by six and a half months being held by mother reduced wariness considerably and it did so at nine months also.
Presence of an infant's mother within sight, about four feet from him, made little difference to the degree of wariness of the stranger shown by the infant at four and a half or six and a half months. By the age of nine months, however, visual contact with mother was found to reduce wariness. Moreover, at that age it was not uncommon for a baby to crawl over to his mother when the stranger approached.
In the light of these findings it is instructive to consider afresh the much-quoted case of Albert on whom Watson & Rayner reported fifty years ago. In a series of experiments this eleven- month-old infant was conditioned to fear a white rat and, through generalization, a rabbit, a piece of seal fur, and human hair. The unconditioned stimulus was a loud noise made by hitting a long steel bar with a hammer just behind his head. Learning theorists have argued that many cases of phobia are to be traced to conditioning of this kind.
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Deductions drawn from the case have often been challenged (e. g. see Marks 1969). In the context of this work the following points deserve mention. First, Albert had been 'reared almost from birth in a hospital environment' and was selected for the
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experiment because he seemed so 'stolid and unemotional'. Second, the conditioning took place with Albert placed on a mattress on top of a small table, and with no familiar figure towards whom he could turn. Some of his responses, nevertheless, were those used by a child in turning to a mother figure: for example, raising his arms as if to be picked up and, later, burying his head in the mattress. In addition, Albert was very apt when upset to suck his thumb. To the experimenters this proved most inconvenient, since 'the moment the hand reached the mouth he became impervious to the stimuli producing fear. Again and again . . . we had to remove the thumb from his mouth before the conditioned response could be obtained. ' From these observations the experimenters themselves reached a very significant conclusion: 'the organism . . . apparently from birth, when under the influence of love stimuli, is blocked to all others. '
Thus the results of this early experiment by Watson & Rayner as well as those of the recent ones by Morgan & Ricciuti and by Bronson are consistent with the picture of the growth of attachment behaviour given in the first volume. They are consistent also with two findings by Schaffer described earlier in this one. The first (reported in Chapter 3) is that, before the age of twenty-eight weeks, infants do not protest when removed from mother to the strange surroundings of a hospital but that, from seven months onwards, they do so. The other finding (noted earlier in the present chapter) is that, whereas an infant of twelve months when confronted with strange objects refers constantly to his mother if she is seated behind him, an infant of six months appears oblivious of her being there.
Thus in general it can be said that, just as attachment to a mother figure is becoming steadily better organized during the latter half of the first year, so also is withdrawal from a feararousing situation. Furthermore, because by twelve months a child's cognitive equipment has developed sufficiently for him to be well able to take account of objects and situations briefly absent, he has become able so to organize his behaviour that he moves simultaneously both away from one type of situation and towards another type. Hence he enters his second year equipped to respond in the dual way that is typical of wellorganized fear behaviour. In the next chapter a description is given of how young monkeys pass through the same developmental phases but at a faster rate.
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Fear of Future Contingencies
In this chapter attention has been focused mainly on the nature of the immediate situations that can be observed to give rise to fear behaviour in children. Nevertheless, during the course of human life the situations that are apt to arouse fear include not only those that are actually present but others, more or less likely, that are forecast. Thus children and adults are frequently apprehensive about events that they believe may be going to occur and of objects and creatures that they suspect may be going to appear. Such fear is concerned with future contingencies.
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Because so many of the situations feared by humans are of that nature and because they bulk so very large in clinical work, it is necessary to examine them in some detail. This is done in Chapters 10 and 11, after the immediate situations that arouse fear behaviour have been considered in the light of the behaviour's biological function.
We turn now to consider what is known about situations that arouse fear in animals. -123-
Chapter 8 Situations that Arouse Fear in Animals
Natural clues to potential danger
Although the stimulus situations that arouse fear in other species are not identical with those that arouse fear in humans, there is much overlap. Overlaps are especially evident, moreover, in the case of the non-human primates, to which much of this chapter is given.
Ethologists take for granted that many of the stimulus situations that arouse fear in animals can be regarded as naturally occurring clues to events that constitute a potential danger to the species in question. This applies especially to situations that arouse fear on the first occasion that an individual encounters them.
Distance receptors are commonly employed for sensing these naturally occurring clues. Depending on the species, an animal may rely mainly on visual clues and receptors, mainly on auditory ones, or mainly on olfactory ones; or on any combination of them. 1 Only when the distance receptors have failed to detect potential dangers in time are the proximal receptors, those for touch and pain, called into action -- and by then it may be too late. Thus, in eliciting fear behaviour, distal clues and distance receptors play a crucial role.
Of all the possible stimulus situations that could act as clues to potential danger and can be sensed at a distance, there are certain ones that are exploited by a very wide array of species. Among the best known are strangeness and sudden approach, both of which regularly evoke fear responses in birds and mammals. Another is the 'visual cliff' to which young mammals of all species so far tested respond by taking avoiding action.
Situations of other kinds, by contrast, arouse fear responses in animals of only a few species; and sometimes, perhaps, of only one. For example, in some species of bird the sight of mammalian fur elicits fear responses; in others, the sight of a pair of staring eyes or of something falling from the sky. In some
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1 For discussions of fear responses in animals see Tinbergen ( 1957), Marler & Hamilton (
1966), and Hinde ( 1970). -124-
species of night-flying moth the high-pitched echolocating calls of predator bats lead to instant flight or, alternatively, to 'catalepsy'. Thus, like drugs, the naturally occurring distal clues to potential danger can be classified into 'broad-spectrum' clues, to which animals of a
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wide array of species are sensitive, and 'narrow-spectrum' clues, to which animals of only one or a few species are sensitive.
Many of the alarm calls of birds and mammals act as broadspectrum clues since they are responded to with fear not only by members of the species that emits them but by members of other species as well. This is in part because the alarm calls of different species have come to resemble each other, presumably through a process of natural selection.
In a number of animal species olfactory stimuli, some of broad but many of narrow spectrum, are especially effective in eliciting fear behaviour. Such 'warning scents' arise from one of two sources: from enemies or from friends. On the one hand, as is well known, the scent of an approaching predator, man or wolf, can elicit fear responses in a broad array of grazing mammals, zebras, deer, and antelope. On the other, an 'alarm scent' emitted by an animal when frightened or wounded can elicit fear responses in other animals (exactly as an alarm call can), but in this case the effect is likely to be confined to members of its own species.
Thus animals of every species are born genetically biased so to develop that they respond with one or another form of fear behaviour whenever they sense a stimulus situation that serves as a naturally occurring clue to one of the particular dangers that beset members of their species. Since some categories of potential danger are common for a wide array of species, clues to them act as broad-spectrum clues. Since other potential dangers affect only a few species, clues to them are likely to be narrow-spectrum.
Just as in man the forms of behaviour that can conveniently be labelled as fear behaviour are diverse, so are they in nonhuman species. Responses include, on the one hand, crouching, curling up, freezing and taking cover, and, on the other, calling, escaping, and seeking proximity to companions. The precise response shown turns on many factors -- the animal's species, its sex and age, its physiological condition, and also the particular type of situation that has aroused the fear.
For example, Hinde ( 1970) reports a finding by Hogan that, in chicks, withdrawal occurs from stimuli at high intensity (and
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some others) whereas freezing is elicited by stimuli that are strange, novel, or surprising. Again, both Lorenz ( 1937) and Tinbergen ( 1957) have pointed out how, in many species of bird, distinctive situations can elicit distinctive sorts of response. The Burmese jungle fowl (and also the domestic chicken) possess two distinct warning calls uttered in response to the sight, respectively, of a flying raptor and a terrestrial predator. When heard by another fowl, the raptor-type warning call elicits a downwards escape, ending, where possible, beneath cover of some kind. When, by contrast, the predator-type warning call is heard a fowl takes off and flies into a tree. These distinctive types of behaviour in response to distinctive warning calls are further evidence that, as is indicated in Chapter 6, we are dealing, not with some single and comprehensive 'instinct of fear', but with a heterogeneous collection of interrelated forms of behaviour, each elicited by a slightly different set of causal conditions.
Fear behaviour, it has been emphasized, may not only remove an animal from situations of certain kinds but take it towards, or into, situations of other kinds. Depending on the warning call heard, a fowl flies into ground cover or into a tree. A form of behaviour shown by
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animals of a great many species, and one of especial interest to our thesis, is movement that takes an animal towards his companions. For example, when a peregrine is overhead, lapwings not only take flight but keep close together as a flock; starlings do the same. (By contrast, in the same situation partridges crouch close to the ground. ) Most of the group-living mammals also edge closer together when alarmed. Movement of this kind is particularly evident in young mammals which, with only few exceptions, habitually run to mother and stay close to her.
Let us return now to the situations that arouse fear. It is probable that all the examples of distant situations mentioned so far in this chapter are responded to by fear behaviour of one kind or another on the very first occasion that an individual of a particular species encounters them. In such cases no special opportunities for learning that the situation is potentially dangerous are required. In the case of other stimulus situations, however, the position is quite different. Only after the situation has become associated with some other clue to potential danger is a fear response aroused. A clue universally known to lead to such learnt associations, though not the only one, is pain.
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Pain receptors are proximal and therefore their role is in many ways different from that of the distal receptors. In the first place, pain receptors are usually called into action as a last resort and only when the distal receptors, or the fear responses they may have elicited, have failed to ensure the animal's withdrawal. In the second place, the sensation of pain leads commonly to immediate and urgent action. In the third place, the sensation of pain may well mean that the danger has already materialized. For these reasons it is easy to suppose that pain and danger are in some way identical, which of course is not the case (see next chapter), and thus to give pain far too great a prominence in theories of fear behaviour.
Because by being a proximal clue to potential danger pain is very late in acting, it is of great biological advantage to an animal to learn to recognize potentially painful situations from associated distal clues. The investigation of such learning has for long been a principal interest of experimental psychologists, and in consequence much is known about it. In particular, it has long been known from conditioning experiments in which a neutral stimulus is coupled with a painful one that, in a great variety of mammalian species, a fear response to a stimulus hitherto neutral is both quickly established and very hard to extinguish.
A high concentration of interest on the fear-arousing properties of pain, and on the learning to which it gives rise, has at times led to a neglect of the immensely important and prior role of distal clues and distal receptors, both in animals and in man. As a result it is not always realized that in many species a new distal clue to potential danger can be learnt as readily by watching how companions respond to it, and then copying them, as by its becoming associated with pain. In mammals, indeed, a principal means whereby new situations come to be categorized as potentially dangerous, and so to be responded to by fear behaviour, is that of copying older animals, especially parents. In no kinds of mammal does imitative behaviour of this sort play so large a part as it does in primates.
