Watch Out, it Bites! An Examination of Threat Information Transmission from Parents to Young Children with Specific Phobias
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9614101 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lisa Trimarchi (0009-0005-5001-4907), Trimarchi Lisa (Griffith University, corresponding author), Gabrielle Simcock (0000-0002-2612-9748, Griffith University), Imogene Calteaux (0000-0003-4019-4367), Calteaux Imogene (Griffith University), Allison M Waters (0000-0003-2453-793X, Griffith University), Thomas Ollendick (0000-0003-3507-0300, Virginia Tech), Thomas H Ollendick, Lara J Farrell (0000-0002-4231-2227, Griffith University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 468-480 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Behavior Therapy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0005-7894 • E-ISSN: 1878-1888 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.beth.2025.08.008 |
| PMID | 42097787 |
| OpenAlex | W4413787577 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
Children learn fear beliefs and avoidance following negative/threat information. • The role of threat information in specific phobia development is currently unknown. • Parents of children with specific phobia provide more frequent threat information. • Parents of children with specific phobia demonstrate greater information recall. Specific phobias are highly prevalent and onset as young as 3 years of age. Evidence suggests children learn fear beliefs and avoidance after being provided negative/threatening information. Little is currently known, however, about the role of information transmission in clinical samples. This study explores the role of information transmission in early onset specific phobias, as proposed by Rachman (1977), by comparing a clinical group of forty-two parents of children (aged 3 to 6 years) with specific phobia and a nonclinical group including seventeen parents of age-matched children. Parents completed a diagnostic telephone interview and parent psychopathology questionnaire, followed by an in-person novel animal task to ascertain the frequency of information they attend to and putatively provide to their children under three valence conditions (positive, negative, ambiguous). Parents of children with specific phobia putatively provided significantly more negative information to their children than parents of nonclinical children, under ambiguous conditions. The amount of negative information provided within this sample was not related to parent’s own anxiety. The findings of this study extend upon previous research showing that it is normative for children to acquire fears after receiving negative/threatening information, providing support for the role of negative/threatening information transmission in pathological fears, with a clinical sample at the time of onset
Anxiety · Phobias · Psychiatry · Psychotherapist · Telecommunications · Transmission (telecommunications) · Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Clinical Psychology · Psychology · Stuttering Research and Treatment
Test-Retest Reliability of Anxiety Symptoms and Diagnoses With the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV
Conditioned emotional reactions.
Parent–child interactions and anxiety disorders
The conditioning theory of fearacquisition
Family issues in child anxiety
Testing reciprocal associations between child anxiety and parenting across early interventions for inhibited preschoolers
Threatened individuals prefer positive information during Internet search
An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |