A behavioral route to dysfunctional representations: The effects of training approach or avoidance tendencies towards novel animals in children

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.02.011 Byline: Jorg Huijding (a), Andy P. Field (b), Jan De Houwer (c), Katrien Vandenbosch (c), Mike Rinck (d), Machteld van Oeveren (a) Abstract: 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. [184 words] Author Affiliation: (a) Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands (b) University of Sussex, UK (c) Ghent University, Belgium (d) Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Article History: Received 23 October 2008; Revised 4 February 2009; Accepted 17 February 2009