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People with synaesthesia have often been reported to possess enhanced memory relative to the general population and, in some cases, exceptional memory ability. However, there are also inconsistencies in this literature and it is unclear whether this reflects sampling error (exacerbated by low Ns) or more meaningful differences that arise because synaesthesia relates to some aspects of memory more than others. To this end, a multi-level meta-analysis was conducted. Synaesthetes have enhanced episodic memory with a medium population effect size estimate (d ̂ = 0.61), whereas the effects on working memory were significantly smaller (d ̂ = 0.36) but still exceeded that of controls. Moderation analyses suggested that, aside from the division between long term versus working memory, the effects of synaesthesia are pervasive i.e. they extend to all kinds of stimuli, and extend to all kinds of test formats. This pattern is hard to reconcile with the view that synaesthetic experiences directly support memory ability: for instance, digit span (where synaesthesia could be helpful) showed a small effect whereas episodic memory for abstract images (where synaesthesia is irrelevant) yielded larger effects. Synaesthesia may be the only known neurodevelopmental condition linked to a pervasive enhancement of long-term memory.

Background: Attention processes may play a central role in shaping trajectories of socioemotional development. Individuals who are clinically anxious or have high levels of trait anxiety sometimes show attention biases to threat. There is emerging evidence that young children also demonstrate a link between attention bias to salient stimuli and broad socioemotional profiles. However, we do not have a systematic and comprehensive assessment of how attention biases, and associated neural and behavioral correlates, emerge and change from infancy through toddlerhood. This paper describes the Longitudinal Attention and Temperament study (LAnTs), which is designed to target these open questions.Method: The current study examines core components of attention across the first 2 years of life, as well as measures of temperament, parental psychosocial functioning, and biological markers of emotion regulation and anxiety risk. The demographically diverse sample (N = 357) was recruited from the area surrounding State College, PA, Harrisburg, PA, and Newark, NJ. Infants and parents are assessed at 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months. Assessments include repeated measures of attention bias (via eye-tracking) in both infants and parents, and measures of temperament (reactivity, negative affect), parental traits (e.g., anxiety and depression), biological markers (electrophysiology, EEG, and respiratory sinus arrythmia, RSA), and the environment (geocoding, neighborhood characteristics, perceived stress). Outcomes include temperamental behavioral inhibition, social behavior, early symptom profiles, and cellular aging (e.g., telomere length).Discussion: This multi-method study aims to identify biomarkers and behavioral indicators of attentional and socioemotional trajectories. The current study brought together innovative measurement techniques to capture the earliest mechanisms that may be causally linked to a pervasive set of problem behaviors. The analyses the emerge from the study will address important questions of socioemotional development and help shape future research. Analyses systematically assessing attention bias patterns, as well as socioemotional profiles, will allow us to delineate the time course of any emerging interrelations. Finally, this study is the first to directly assess competing models of the role attention may play in socioemotional development in the first years of life.

Although an abundant literature documents preliterate children's word learning success from shared storybook reading, a full synthesis of the factors which moderate these word learning effects has been largely neglected. This meta-analysis included 38 studies with 2,455 children, reflecting 110 effect sizes, investigating how reading styles, story repetitions, tokens and related factors moderate children's word comprehension, while adjusting for the number of target words. Dialogic reading styles, tokens, and the number of words tested all moderated word learning effects. Children's age, who read the story, and time between story and test were not moderators. We identify story repetition and word types as topics which merit further research. These results provide information to guide researchers and educators alike to the factors with the greatest impact on improving word learning from shared storybook reading. (PsycINFO Database Record

This paper reviews and offers tutorials on robust statistical methods relevant to clinical and experimental psychopathology researchers. We review the assumptions of one of the most commonly applied models in this journal (the general linear model, GLM) and the effects of violating them. We then present evidence that psychological data are more likely than not to violate these assumptions. Next, we overview some methods for correcting for violations of model assumptions. The final part of the paper presents 8 tutorials of robust statistical methods using R that cover a range of variants of the GLM (t-tests, ANOVA, multiple regression, multilevel models, latent growth models). We conclude with recommendations that set the expectations for what methods researchers submitting to the journal should apply and what they should report.

The primary- to secondary-education transition is a substantive life event for many children. The transition can be associated with changes in the developmental trajectories of both emotional health and academic achievement. The current study looked at whether the trajectory of mathematical attainment and emotional health (anxiety) across this transition predicted later maths anxiety. A secondary analysis of data from the Twin Early Development Study (TEDS) was performed. The statistical models were fit on the 753 participants (one from each twin pair) for which there were measures of mathematical performance across the primary- to secondary-education transition and maths anxiety at age 18. Two multi-level growth models were fit predicting mathematical attainment and anxiety over the primary- to secondary-education transition. The intercepts and slopes for each child were extracted from these models and used as predictors of subsequent maths anxiety at age 18. These effects were adjusted for biological sex, socio-economic status, verbal cognitive ability and general anxiety. Maths anxiety at age 18 was significantly predicted by both pre-transition levels of anxiety and mathematical attainment and their rate of change across the primary- to secondary-education transition. However, the effects were small, suggesting that theories of maths anxiety may have overplayed the role of prior mathematical attainment and general anxiety.

Children of anxious parents are at high risk of anxiety disorders themselves. The evidence suggests that this is due to environmental rather than genetic factors. However, we currently do little to reduce this risk of transmission. There is evidence that supporting parenting in those with mental health difficulties can ameliorate this risk. Therefore, the objective of this study was to test the feasibility of a new one-session, group-based, preventive parenting intervention for parents with anxiety disorders.Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial.A total of 100 parents with anxiety disorders, recruited from adult mental health services in England (and child aged 3-9 years), were randomized to receive the new intervention (a 1-day, group workshop), or to treatment as usual. Children's anxiety disorder and anxiety symptoms were assessed to 12 months by outcome assessors who were blind to group allocation. Exploratory analyses were conducted on an intention to treat basis, as far as possible.A total of 51 participants were randomized to the intervention condition and 49 to the control condition (82% and 80% followed to 12 months, respectively). The attendance rate was 59%, and the intervention was highly acceptable to parents who received it. The RCT was feasible, and 12-month follow-up attrition rates were low. Children whose parents were in the control condition were 16.5% more likely to have an anxiety disorder at follow-up than those in the intervention group. No adverse events were reported.An inexpensive, light-touch, psycho-educational intervention may be useful in breaking the intergenerational cycle of transmission of anxiety disorders. A substantive trial is warranted.Anxiety disorders run in families, but we currently do little to help anxious parents to raise confident children. A brief group workshop was highly acceptable to such parents and was very inexpensive to run. Children of parents who took part in the brief intervention were 16.5% less likely to have an anxiety disorder, 1 year later, than children whose parents were in the control group. This was a feasibility study, and while it showed that both the intervention and the research were feasible, the study needs replicating with a much larger sample. Many parents faced barriers to attending the workshop, and future efforts should focus on widening accessibility. We were unable to obtain sufficient self-report data from children, so the outcomes are based on parent report only.

Objective: Maternal verbal threat information influences fear acquisition during childhood. This study investigates whether child attachment moderates the impact of maternal verbal threat information on children’s fear beliefs and behavioral avoidance.Design: Mothers of 60 children provided verbal threat information about one of two unfamiliar Australian animals. Change in children’s fear beliefs was measured with a questionnaire, and their behavioral avoidance was observed. Attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were measured using children’s self-report.Results: The impact of verbal threat information on fear beliefs was not moderated by attachment. However, attachment anxiety enhanced the effect of maternal verbal threat information on child behavioral avoidance.Conclusion: These results provide insight into complex processes that explain the impact of parent-child relationships on child fear acquisition through maternal verbal threat information.

We report a meta- and primary data-analysis investigating the efficacy of cognitive therapy (CT) for pathological worry in adults with GAD that includes an analysis of primary data not reported in previous meta-analyses. Eligible studies included those whose participants met the criteria for a diagnosis of GAD and those that used the PSWQ as an outcome measure. All eligible studies used a randomized controlled design. Analyses included a random-effects meta-analysis of between-study effect sizes and hierarchical linear models of both within study change over time and primary recovery data. The results show that CT was effective in reducing pathological worry when compared with non-therapy controls (d=1.81), and gains were largely maintained at follow-up. The magnitude of effects reported was larger than previously found, suggesting an increased efficacy of newer forms of CT. However, we found weaker evidence to suggest that CT for pathological worry was superior to non-CT treatment controls (d=0.63). Analysis of primary recovery data revealed that 57% of participants were classed as recovered at 12 months following CT, and CT had significantly better recovery rates than all other comparison treatments at post-treatment and 12-month follow-up. These findings support the increasing efficacy of CT as a treatment for GAD. However, CT interventions still need further refinement to help a greater proportion of sufferers achieve recovery.

Two experiments are described that explore the effects of verbal information and direct conditioning in the acquisition and extinction of fear responses. Participants were given verbal threat information about novel animals before conditioning trials in which the animals were presented alongside an aversive outcome (Experiment 1), or positive information about the animals before extinction trials (Experiment 2). Fear was measured using self-reported fear beliefs, expectancy of the unconditioned stimulus (US) and event-related brain potential (ERP). The results showed a direct effect of verbal information on acquisition (Experiment 1) and extinction (Experiment 2). There was a P2 peak latency shift at acquisition (Experiment 1) and P1 mean amplitude response at extinction (Experiment 2) based on the interaction between verbal information and US-contingency. However, the P2 response showed little evidence for an enhanced conditioned response (CR) when verbal threat information and direct conditioning combined: earlier P2 responses were found for all animals that had been associated with either threat information or the aversive US. Additionally, increase in P1 mean amplitude response (Experiment 2) seemed to stem from the conflict between verbal information and contingency information, rather than the predicted decrease in response where positive information and extinction training were combined. Future studies are suggested that might explore whether attention/arousal modulate the P1 response as a result of such expectation violations.

Cognitive biases are known to play an important role in anxiety. In this study we investigate whether maternal anxiety is associated with biases in interpretation, attention, and catastrophic processing about self-referent stimuli that may signal potential threat in the mother's own environment. We also investigate whether maternal anxiety is associated with biases about stimuli that their own child may encounter or to child-related stimuli more broadly. Three hundred mothers with a child aged 6 to 10 years participated. All participants completed a trait anxiety measure and an ambiguous sentences task to assess interpretation bias for self- and child-referent situations. A subset of the sample completed a catastrophizing interview about a self- (n = 194) or child-referent (n = 99) worry topic and an attentional dot-probe task (n = 99) with general threat and child threat stimuli. Maternal anxiety was not significantly associated with an attentional bias for general or child threat stimuli but was significantly associated with a bias for threat interpretations of both self and child-referent situations. Higher maternal anxiety was also significantly associated with generating more catastrophic outcomes to both a self-referent and child-referent hypothetical worry situation. We consider whether maternal cognitive biases, which extend to influence how mothers process potential threats in their child's world, may be an important mechanism through which intergenerational transmission of anxiety could occur.

We examined the effects of training to approach or avoid novel animals on fear-related responses in children. Ninety-nine primary school children (9-12 years old) were instructed to repeatedly move a manikin toward or away from pictures of novel animals. The training produced more positive self-reported attitudes for the animal that was repeatedly approached and more negative attitudes for the animal that was repeatedly avoided. After the training, children reported more fear of the avoided animal than of the approached animal. Interestingly, children showed a training-congruent confirmation bias effect on an information-seeking task. That is, they displayed a tendency to seek more positive information about the approached animal, whereas they were inclined to search for more negative information about the avoided animal. No significant training effects were observed on implicit attitudes. The finding that a simple approach-avoidance training influences children's fear-related responses and leads to biased information-seeking behaviors lends support to general theories of fear acquisition in children as well as to models that try to explain the intergenerational transmission of anxiety.

Using an experimental bias modification task, an interpretation bias towards or away from threat was induced about animal or social situations in a sample of 103 children split into a young (7-10 years) and old age group (11-15 years). Children rapidly learned to select outcomes of ambiguous situations which were congruent with their assigned modification condition. Following positive modification, children's threat interpretation biases significantly decreased, while threat biases increased (non-significantly) after negative modification. Bias modification effects also varied as a function of age with children appearing particularly vulnerable to acquiring biases about stimuli that were congruent with the normative fears for their age group. Weak age-related modification-congruent effects on younger but not older children's anxiety vulnerability in response to a behavioral task were also observed. However, no consistent effects of bias modification on avoidance behavior were found.

This study investigated the effect of filmed peer modeling on fear beliefs and approach–avoidance behaviors towards animals in 8- to 10-year-old typically developing children. Ninety-seven children randomly received either a positive or negative modeling film in which they saw peers interact with a novel animal. Before and after this film, children’s fear beliefs and avoidance tendencies towards the modeled and non-modeled control animal were measured. A behavioral approach task was also administered post-modeling. Following positive peer modeling, children’s fear beliefs and avoidance tendencies towards the modeled but also towards the non-modeled animal decreased significantly. After negative modeling, children’s fear beliefs towards the modeled animal increased significantly, but did not change for the non-modeled animal. Negative modeling did not change avoidance tendencies for the modeled animal, while it decreased children’s avoidance of the non-modeled animal. No significant effects were observed on the behavioral approach task. These results support Rachman’s indirect pathway of modeling/vicarious learning as a plausible mechanism by which children can acquire fears of novel stimuli and stresses the important fear-reducing effects of positive peer modeling. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This study investigated the effects of experimentally modifying interpretation biases for children's cognitions, avoidance behavior, anxiety vulnerability, and physiological responding. Sixty-seven children (6-11 years) were randomly assigned to receive a positive or negative interpretation bias modification procedure to induce interpretation biases toward or away from threat about ambiguous situations involving Australian marsupials. Children rapidly learned to select outcomes of ambiguous situations, which were congruent with their assigned condition. Furthermore, following positive modification, children's threat biases about novel ambiguous situations significantly decreased, whereas threat biases significantly increased after negative modification. In response to a stress-evoking behavioral avoidance test, positive modification attenuated behavioral avoidance compared to negative modification. However, no significant effects of bias modification on anxiety vulnerability or physiological responses to this stress-evoking Behavioral Avoidance Task were observed.

Meta-analysis is a statistical tool for estimating the mean and variance of underlying population effects from a collection of empirical studies addressing ostensibly the same research question. Meta-analysis has become an increasing popular and valuable tool in psychological research, and major review articles typically employ these methods. This article describes the process of conducting meta-analysis: selecting articles, developing inclusion criteria, calculating effect sizes, conducting the actual analysis (including information on how to do the analysis on popular computer packages such as IBM SPSS and R) and estimating the effects of publication bias. Guidance is also given on how to write up a meta-analysis.

There is increasing research on posttraumatic growth after life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and HIV/AIDS, although it is unclear whether growth confers any psychological or physical benefits in such samples. Consequently, this meta-analysis explored the relationship between posttraumatic growth and psychological and physical wellbeing in adults diagnosed with cancer or HIV/AIDS and examined potential moderators of these relationships. Analysis of 38 studies (N = 7927) of posttraumatic growth after cancer or HIV/AIDS revealed that growth was related to increased positive mental health, reduced negative mental health and better subjective physical health. Moderators of these relationships included time since the event, age, ethnicity, and type of negative mental health outcome. It is hoped that this synthesis will encourage further examination of the potentially complex relationship between posttraumatic growth and adjustment in individuals living with life-threatening medical conditions.

This study investigated whether children's fears could be un-learned using Rachman's indirect pathways for learning fear. We hypothesised that positive information and modelling a non-anxious response are effective methods of un-learning fears acquired through verbal information. One hundred and seven children aged 6-8 years received negative information about one animal and no information about another. Fear beliefs and behavioural avoidance were measured. Children were randomised to receive positive verbal information, modelling, or a control task. Fear beliefs and behavioural avoidance were measured again. Positive information and modelling led to lower fear beliefs and behavioural avoidance than the control condition. Positive information was more effective than modelling in reducing fear beliefs and both methods significantly reduced behavioural avoidance. The results support Rachman's indirect pathways as viable fear un-learning pathways and supports associative learning theories.

Contains fulltext : 77541.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) We examined the effects of training to approach or avoid novel animals on fear-related responses in children. Ninety-five primary school children (9–13 years old) were instructed to repeatedly push away or pull closer pictures of novel animals. We tested whether this manipulation would lead to changes in self-reported attitudes, implicit attitudes, fear beliefs, and avoidance behaviors towards these animals. The training produced more positive self-reported attitudes towards the pulled animal and more negative attitudes towards the pushed animal. After the training, girls reported more fear and avoidance of the pushed animal than of the pulled animal, while such training effects were absent in boys. No significant training effects were observed on implicit attitudes. Interestingly, the level of anxiety disorder symptoms prior to training was related to some of the training effects: Stronger prior fear was related to stronger changes in self-reported attitudes, and in boys, also to fear beliefs. The finding that a simple approach–avoidance training influences children's fear-related responses lends support to general theories of fear acquisition in children as well as to models that try to explain the intergenerational transmission of anxiety.

The present study made an attempt to induce fear-related reasoning biases by providing children with negative information about a novel stimulus. For this purpose, non-clinical children aged 9-12 years (N = 318) were shown a picture of an unknown animal for which they received either negative, ambiguous, positive, or no information. Then children completed a series of tests for measuring various types of reasoning biases (i.e., confirmation bias and covariation bias) in relation to this animal. Results indicated that children in the negative and, to a lesser extent, the ambiguous information groups displayed higher scores on tests of fear-related reasoning biases than children in the positive and no information groups. Altogether, these results support the idea that learning via negatively tinted information plays a role in the development of fear-related cognitive distortions in youths. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Forty years on from the initial idea that fears could be learnt vicariously through observing other people's responses to a situation or stimulus, this review looks at the evidence for this theory as an explanatory model of clinical fear. First, we review early experimental evidence that fears can be learnt vicariously before turning to the evidence from both primate and human research that clinical fears can be acquired in this way. Finally, we review recent evidence from research on non-anxious children. Throughout the review we highlight problems and areas for future research. We conclude by exploring the likely underlying mechanisms in the vicarious learning of fear and the resulting clinical implications.

Recent transdiagnostic models of psychological disorder posit that the separate diagnostic categories are underpinned by a remarkably similar set of processes. However, it has been suggested that these processes themselves may have substantial commonalities, and, in fact, be derivatives of one or more higher order factors (i.e. a ‘transprocess’ model). This study examined this proposition with relation to cognitive processes in social anxiety, with 559 undergraduates who completed measures of Social Phobia; capacity for generating visual imagery; rumination; worry, tendency to experience shame; and metacognitive response to intrusions. The best conceptualization of these cognitive processes as explanations of social anxiety was to view them as indicators of a higher order variable that was not measured. In other words, social anxiety was best predicted from a single cognitive process that was not measured directly, but is made up of the interpretation of intrusions, trait rumination, obsessive beliefs, shame and worry. Visual imagery did not appear to add significantly to the fit of the model to the data. There appears to be substantial overlap in the cognitive processes that underpin symptoms of social anxiety, providing support for the transprocess model.

Recent research has shown that the verbal information and vicarious learning pathways to fear create long term fear cognitions and can create cognitive biases and avoidance in children. However, it is unlikely that these pathways operate in isolation in the aetiology of childhood fear and the interaction between these pathways is untested. Three preliminary experiments are reported that explore the combined effect of verbal threat information and vicarious learning on self-reported fear beliefs in 7–9-year-old children. Results showed that prior negative information significantly facilitated the effect of negative vicarious learning on children's fear beliefs (Experiment 1); however, there was not a significant combined effect of verbal threat information and vicarious learning when they the information was presented during (Experiment 2) or after (Experiment 3) vicarious learning. These results support the idea that verbal information can affect CS-US associations formed in subsequent vicarious learning events, but contradict the proposal that it can change fear beliefs already acquired through vicarious learning by changing how a person evaluates the vicarious learning episode.

Parenting styles are associated with anxiety in children. Part of this association can be explained by how parenting interacts with known pathways to anxiety. Although parenting interacts with the verbal threat information pathway to create anxiogenic cognitions in children, it is not known whether parenting styles mediate the physiological component of the anxiety emotion. An experiment is reported in which 6–10-year-old children (N = 54) completed parenting styles, and anxiety beliefs questionnaires. They were then given threat, positive or no verbal information about three novel animals before being asked to place their hands in boxes they believed these animals inhabited. Their average heart rate during the approach was recorded. The results suggest that a neglectful maternal parenting style mediates the effect that verbal threat information has on physiological responses. However, a punitive maternal parenting style, maternal warmth, overprotection, and accurate monitoring were not found to have a significant effect. Paternal parenting styles were not found to have any significant effect. This experiment adds to the existing evidence demonstrating that parenting practices can mediate components of acquired anxiety emotions.

Although research into evaluative conditioning (EC) has progressed considerably over the past 30 years, there have been some doubts about the strength and reliability of conditioning effects ? especially when visual stimuli are used. Partly this has been due to well-documented methodological debates and empirical evidence of alternative causes of apparent learning (Field & Davey, 1999). The seeds of doubt have undoubtedly been nurtured, also by the numerous informal reports of researchers failing to obtain EC effects ? even when replicating previously successful paradigms. This has led some to talk of boundary conditions that could enhance or eliminate the effects in EC experiments (De Houwer, Baeyens, Vansteenwegen & Eelen, 2000). This paper summarises 12 experiments that have explored this elusive phenomenon with mixed results (even when replicating past procedures). These various experiments are used to attempt to draw conclusions about what boundary conditions might exist for evaluative conditioning.

Recent research has shown that verbal threat information creates long-term fear cognitions and can create cognitive biases and avoidance in children. However, the impact on future learning is untested. This experiment exposed a non-clinical sample of children (aged 7–9 years) to threat, positive or no information about three novel animals to see the impact on their subsequent causal learning. In this causal learning task, children saw a series of pictures of animals and had to predict on each trial whether there would be a good or bad outcome. They then saw a picture to indicate whether the outcome was good or bad. The probability of each outcome was either .2 or .8. At the end of a block of trials children were also asked to estimate how many trials they thought had concluded with a negative outcome. Results showed that verbal information directly affected the estimate of associative strength between animals and positive and negative outcomes in a causal learning task. These results support theories of f...

The aim of this introductory paper, and of this special issue of Cognition and Emotion, is to stimulate debate about theoretical issues that will inform child anxiety research in the coming years. Papers included in this special issue have arisen from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK) funded seminar series, which we called Child Anxiety Theory and Treatment (CATTS). We begin with an overview of the CATTS project before discussing (1) the application of adult models of anxiety to children, and (2) the role of parents in child anxiety. We explore the utility of adult models of anxiety for child populations before discussing the problems that are associated with employing them uncritically in this context. The study of anxiety in children provides the opportunity to observe the trajectory of anxiety and to identify variables that causally influence its development. Parental influences are of particular interest and new and imaginative strategies are required to isolate the complex network of causal relationships therein. We conclude by suggesting that research into the causes and developmental course of anxiety in children should be developed further. We also propose that, although much is known about the role of parents in the development of anxiety, it would be useful for research in this area to move towards an examination of the specific processes involved. We hope that these views represent a constructive agenda for people in the field to consider when planning future research.

The present article provides a review on the role of distorted cognition in the pathogenesis of childhood anxiety problems. A comprehensive model of information processing that can be employed for discussing various types of anxiety-related cognitive distortions is presented. Evidence for the occurrence of these cognitive distortions in anxious children and adolescents is summarised. Then, the origins of cognitive distortions in anxious children and adolescents are addressed with reference to genetic-based vulnerability, environmental influence, and gene-environment interactions. Finally, the article provides a critical discussion of the developmental aspects of cognitive distortions, their precise role in the aetiology and maintenance of childhood anxiety disorders, and their relevance for the treatment of this type of psychopathology. Throughout the article many leads are given that may guide future research in this area.

Parenting styles and the parent-child bond are associated with anxiety in children. Despite this association, little is known about the mechanism through which parenting has its effect. One possibility is that parenting interacts with other known pathways to fear. Two experiments are reported that look at the interaction between parenting styles and parent-child relationships and the verbal information pathway to fear. In Experiment 1, a punitive maternal parenting style was found to interact with the effect of threat information about a novel animal in 6–9-year-old children. Maternal warmth, neglect, overprotection and accurate monitoring were not found to have a significant effect. Experiment 2 showed that children reporting a greater number of negative interactions with their fathers had greater increases in fear beliefs about novel animals after both threat and no information. The quality of mother-child relationships did not significantly interact with the verbal information pathway. These experiments offer preliminary evidence that parenting practices influence how children react to negative information, which offers some insight into the potential causes of the association between parenting and anxiety in children.

Two experiments explored the role of verbal information in changing children's fear-related beliefs about social situations. In Experiment 1, 118 6- to 8- and 12- to 13-year-olds heard positive, negative, or no information about individuals' experiences of three social situations. Fear beliefs regarding each situation were assessed before and after this manipulation. Verbal information had no significant influence on children's fear beliefs. In Experiment 2, the same paradigm was used with 80 12- to 13-year-olds, but the information took the form of multiple attitude statements about the situations expressed by groups of peers, older children, or adults. An affective priming task of implicit attitudes was used to complement the explicit questions about fear beliefs. Negative information influenced both explicit and implicit fear beliefs. The source of information and the child's own social anxiety did not moderate these effects. Implications for our understanding of the socialisation of childhood fears are discussed.

Objectives: Asthma is a chronic condition affecting 300 million people worldwide. Management involves adherence to pharmacological treatments such as corticosteroids and β-agonists, but residual symptoms persist. As asthma symptoms are exacerbated by stress, one possible adjunct to pharmacological treatment is expressive writing (EW). EW involves the disclosure of traumatic experiences which is thought to facilitate cognitive and emotional processing, helping to reduce physiological stress associated with inhibiting emotions. A previous trial reported short-term improvements in lung function. This study aimed to assess whether EW can improve lung function, quality of life, symptoms, and medication use in patients with asthma. Methods: Adults (18–45 years) diagnosed as having asthma requiring regular inhaled corticosteroids were recruited from 28 general practices in South East England (n = 146). In this double-blind randomized controlled trial, participants were allocated either EW or nonemotional writing instructions and asked to write for 20 minutes for 3 consecutive days. Lung function (forced expired volume in 1 second [FEV1]% predicted), quality of life (Mark's Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire), asthma symptoms (Wasserfallen Symptom Score Questionnaire), and medication use (inhaled corticosteroids and β-agonist) were recorded at baseline, 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. Results: Hierarchical linear modeling indicated no significant main effects between time and condition on any outcomes. Post hoc analyses revealed that EW improved lung function by 14% for 12 months for participants with less than 80% FEV1% predicted at baseline (β = 0.93, p = .002) whereas no improvement was observed in the control condition (β = 0.10, p = .667). Conclusions: EW seems to be beneficial for patients with moderate asthma (

Although little is known about how preferences develop in childhood, work in adults suggests that evaluative responses to stimuli can be acquired through classical conditioning. In two experiments children were exposed to novel cartoon characters, that were either consistently paired with a picture of a disliked food (Brussels sprouts) or a liked food (ice cream). Relative preferences for these stimuli (and others) were measured before and after these paired presentations (Experiment 1): preferences for the cartoon character paired with Brussels sprouts decreased, whereas preferences for the character paired with ice cream increased. These preferences persisted after 10 un-reinforced trials. Experiment 2 replicated this finding using affective priming as an index of preference for the cartoon characters. These findings demonstrate that preferences to novel stimuli can be conditioned in children and result from associations formed between the stimulus and a stimulus possessing positive or negative valence.

Two experiments are described that investigate the effects of attention in moderating evaluative conditioning (EC) effects in a picture‐picture paradigm in which previously discovered experimental artifacts (e.g., Field & Davey, 1999) were overcome by counterbalancing conditioned stimuli (CSs) and unconditioned stimuli (USs) across participants. Conditioned responses for individuals who had attention enhanced were compared against a control group and groups for whom attention was impeded using a distracter task. In a second experiment the effects of attention were dissociated from those of contingency awareness by using backward‐masked US presentations. The results of these experiments indicate that although associative EC effects may not be disrupted by a lack of contingency awareness, attention is an important factor in establishing conditioning. These results shed some light onto the possible boundary conditions that could explain past inconsistencies in obtaining EC effects in the visual paradigm.

Measurement of depression and other mood states in pain patients has been criticised in recent years on the grounds that most questionnaires were not developed in pain populations and suffer from criterion contamination by somatic items. In addition, there is no accepted measurement for positive emotions which are more than the absence of depression. The aim of this study was to develop a reliable and brief tool to assess mood in pain patients. Non-somatic items concerning depression, anxiety and positive outlook were extracted using exploratory factor analysis from commonly used instruments (the Beck Depression Inventory and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) completed by over 900 chronic pain patients. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the internal structure of the final item set. Items were then reworded and presented as a new questionnaire (the Depression, Anxiety and Positive Outlook Scale: DAPOS) to two new samples: patients attending pain management and patients attending osteopathy. The new questionnaire was compared with several well-known questionnaires (SF36, BDI, PCS). The structure was calibrated and tested using confirmatory factor analysis on both samples. Finally, a subset of patients carried out a sorting task to test for face validity. The DAPOS performed well, indicating that it is a reliable measure of the three mood states with good initial evidence of validity in these samples.

There are 2 approaches to meta-analysis: One assumes that studies in a meta-analysis are sampled from populations with the same effect size (the fixed-effects case), the other assumes that studies are taken from populations that have varying effect sizes (the random-effects case). As such, 2 corresponding meta-analytic frameworks have been developed: fixed- and random-effects methods. Recent evidence suggests that the assumption of fixed population effect sizes is not tenable for virtually all real-world data (e.g., Hunter & Schmidt, 2000), and yet fixed-effects methods of meta-analysis are routinely applied to real-world data (see National Research Council, 1992). This article describes some of the problems in using fixed-effects models on random-effects data by presenting 2 Monte Carlo simulations. In keeping with statistical theory (e.g., Hunter & Schmidt, 2000) results show a radical inflation of the significance tests of the mean effect sizes (above and beyond theoretical predictions). These results ...

Background: Although many studies have now demonstrated that threat information is sufficient to change children's beliefs and behaviours towards novel animals, there is no evidence to suggest that it influences the physiological component of the fear emotion. Methods: An experiment is reported in which children (N = 26) aged between 6 and 9 were given threat, positive or no information about three novel animals and then asked to place their hands into boxes that they believed to contain each of these animals. Their average heart rate during each approach task was measured. Results: One-way analysis of variance revealed significant differences in the average heart rate when approaching the three boxes: heart rates were significantly higher when approaching the box containing the animal associated with threat information compared to when approaching the control animal. Conclusions: These findings suggest that fear information acts not only upon cognitive and behavioural aspects of the fear emotion, but also on the physiological component.

Recent research has shown that the verbal information pathway to fear creates long-term fear cognitions and can create cognitive biases and avoidance in children. However, the interaction between the verbal information pathway to fear and other pathways is untested. This experiment exposed children (aged 6-8) to threat information about a novel animal to see the impact on a measure of avoidance after a subsequent simulated direct negative encounter with that animal. Results showed that a direct negative experience (without prior information) or threat information (without a subsequent negative experience) produced similar effects, but in combination (verbal threat information followed by a direct negative experience) the effect was significantly magnified. These results support theories of fear acquisition that suppose that verbal information impacts on the strength of associations formed in subsequent conditioning episodes, and suggest that pathways to fear have interactive effects.

Vicarious learning has long been assumed to be an indirect pathway to fear; however, there is only retrospective evidence that children acquire fears in this way. In two experiments, children (aged 7–9 years) were exposed to pictures of novel animals paired with pictures of either scared, happy or no facial expressions to see the impact on their fear cognitions and avoidance behavior about the animals. In Experiment 1, directly (self-report) and indirectly measured (affective priming) fear attitudes towards the animals changed congruent with the facial expressions with which these were paired. The indirectly measured fear beliefs persisted up to 3 months. Experiment 2 showed that children took significantly longer to approach a box they believed to contain an animal they had previously seen paired with scared faces. These results support theories of fear acquisition that suppose that vicarious learning affects cognitive and behavioral fear emotion, and suggest possibilities for interventions to weaken fear acquired in this way.

Rachman’s (Behaviour Research and Therapy 15:372–387, 1977; Clinical Psychology Review 11:155–173, 1991) three pathways theory proposed that childhood fears not only arise as a consequence of direct learning experiences, but can also be elicited by means of threat information transmission. This review looks at the scientific evidence for this idea, which has accumulated during the past three decades. We review research on the influences of media exposure on children’s fears, retrospective parent and child reports on the role of threat information in fear acquisition, and experimental studies that explored the causal effects of threat information on childhood fears. We also discuss possible mechanisms by which threat information exerts its influence and the processes relevant to understand the role of this type of learning experience in the origins of fear. Finally, implications for the prevention and intervention of childhood fears are briefly explored, and potential leads for future research will be highlighted.