Chris Askew

The vicarious learning pathway to fear 40 years on.

Forty years on from the initial idea that fears could be learnt vicariously through observing other peoples 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.

Vicarious learning and unlearning of fear in childhood via mother and stranger models.

Evidence shows that anxiety runs in families. One reason may be that children are particularly susceptible to learning fear from their parents. The current study compared childrens fear beliefs and avoidance preferences for animals following positive or fearful modeling by mothers and strangers in vicarious learning and unlearning procedures. Children aged 6 to 10 years (N = 60) were exposed to pictures of novel animals either alone (control) or together with pictures of their mother or a stranger expressing fear or happiness. During unlearning (counterconditioning), children saw each animal again with their mother or a stranger expressing the opposite facial expression. Following vicarious learning, childrens fear beliefs increased for animals seen with scared faces and this effect was the same whether fear was modeled by mothers or strangers. Fear beliefs and avoidance preferences decreased following positive counterconditioning and increased following fear counterconditioning. Again, learning was the same whether the model was the childs mother or a stranger. These findings indicate that children in this age group can vicariously learn and unlearn fear-related cognitions from both strangers and mothers. This has implications for our understanding of fear acquisition and the development of early interventions to prevent and reverse childhood fears and phobias.

Effect of vicarious fear learning on children's heart rate responses and attentional bias for novel animals

Research with children has shown that vicarious learning can result in changes to 2 of Lang’s (1968) 3 anxiety response systems: subjective report and behavioral avoidance. The current study extended this research by exploring the effect of vicarious learning on physiological responses (Lang’s final response system) and attentional bias. The study used Askew and Field’s (2007) vicarious learning procedure and demonstrated fear-related increases in children’s cognitive, behavioral, and physiological responses. Cognitive and behavioral changes were retested 1 week and 1 month later, and remained elevated. In addition, a visual search task demonstrated that fear-related vicarious learning creates an attentional bias for novel animals, which is moderated by increases in fear beliefs during learning. The findings demonstrate that vicarious learning leads to lasting changes in all 3 of Lang’s anxiety response systems and is sufficient to create attentional bias to threat in children.

What Happens When Verbal Threat Information and Vicarious Learning Combine

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 childrens 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.

Stimulus fear-relevance and the vicarious learning pathway to childhood fears

Enhanced fear learning for fear-relevant stimuli has been demonstrated in procedures with adults in the laboratory. Three experiments investigated the effect of stimulus fear-relevance on vicarious fear learning in children (aged 6-11 years). Pictures of stimuli with different levels of fear-relevance (flowers, caterpillars, snakes, worms, and Australian marsupials) were presented alone or together with scared faces. In line with previous studies, childrens fear beliefs and avoidance preferences increased for stimuli they had seen with scared faces. However, in contrast to evidence with adults, learning was mostly similar for all stimulus types irrespective of fear-relevance. The results support a proposal that stimulus preparedness is bypassed when children observationally learn threat-related information from adults.

Inhibition of vicariously learned fear in children using positive modeling and prior exposure

One of the challenges to conditioning models of fear acquisition is to explain how different individuals can experience similar learning events and only some of them subsequently develop fear. Understanding factors moderating the impact of learning events on fear acquisition is key to understanding the etiology and prevention of fear in childhood. This study investigates these moderators in the context of vicarious (observational) learning. Two experiments tested predictions that the acquisition or inhibition of fear via vicarious learning is driven by associative learning mechanisms similar to direct conditioning. In Experiment 1, 3 groups of children aged 7 to 9 years received 1 of 3 inhibitive information interventions—psychoeducation, factual information, or no information (control)—prior to taking part in a vicarious fear learning procedure. In Experiment 2, 3 groups of children aged 7 to 10 years received 1 of 3 observational learning interventions—positive modeling (immunization), observational familiarity (latent inhibition), or no prevention (control)—before vicarious fear learning. Results indicated that observationally delivered manipulations inhibited vicarious fear learning, while preventions presented via written information did not. These findings confirm that vicarious learning shares some of the characteristics of direct conditioning and can explain why not all individuals will develop fear following a vicarious learning event. They also suggest that the modality of inhibitive learning is important and should match the fear learning pathway for increased chances of inhibition. Finally, the results demonstrate that positive modeling is likely to be a particularly effective method for preventing fear-related observational learning in children.

The effect of disgust and fear modeling on children's disgust and fear for animals

Disgust is a protective emotion associated with certain types of animal fears. Given that a primary function of disgust is to protect against harm, increasing children’s disgust-related beliefs for animals may affect how threatening they think animals are and their avoidance of them. One way that children’s disgust beliefs for animals might change is via vicarious learning: by observing others responding to the animal with disgust. In Experiment 1, children (ages 7–10 years) were presented with images of novel animals together with adult faces expressing disgust. Children’s fear beliefs and avoidance preferences increased for these disgust-paired animals compared with unpaired control animals. Experiment 2 used the same procedure and compared disgust vicarious learning with vicarious learning with fear faces. Children’s fear beliefs and avoidance preferences for animals again increased as a result of disgust vicarious learning, and animals seen with disgust or fear faces were also rated more disgusting than control animals. The relationship between increased fear beliefs and avoidance preferences for animals was mediated by disgust for the animals. The experiments demonstrate that children can learn to believe that animals are disgusting and threatening after observing an adult responding with disgust toward them. The findings also suggest a bidirectional relationship between fear and disgust with fear-related vicarious learning leading to increased disgust for animals and disgust-related vicarious learning leading to increased fear and avoidance.

Reductions in Children’s Vicariously Learnt Avoidance and Heart Rate Responses Using Positive Modeling

Recent research has indicated that vicarious learning can lead to increases in children’s fear beliefs and avoidance preferences for stimuli and that these fear responses can subsequently be reversed using positive modeling (counterconditioning). The current study investigated children’s vicariously acquired avoidance behavior, physiological responses (heart rate), and attentional bias for stimuli and whether these could also be reduced via counterconditioning. Ninety-six (49 boys, 47 girls) 7- to 11-year-olds received vicarious fear learning for novel stimuli and were then randomly assigned to a counterconditioning, extinction, or control group. Fear beliefs and avoidance preferences were measured pre- and post-learning, whereas avoidance behavior, heart rate, and attentional bias were all measured post-learning. Control group children showed increases in fear beliefs and avoidance preferences for animals seen in vicarious fear learning trials. In addition, significantly greater avoidance behavior, heart rate responding, and attentional bias were observed for these animals compared to a control animal. In contrast, vicariously acquired avoidance preferences of children in the counterconditioning group were significantly reduced post-positive modeling, and these children also did not show the heightened heart rate responding to fear-paired animals. Children in the extinction group demonstrated comparable responses to the control group; thus the extinction procedure showed no effect on any fear measures. The findings suggest that counterconditioning with positive modelling can be used as an effective early intervention to reduce the behavioral and physiological effects of vicarious fear learning in childhood.

Vicarious Learning of Children's Social-Anxiety-Related Fear Beliefs and Emotional Stroop Bias

Models of social anxiety suggest that negative social experiences contribute to the development of social anxiety, and this is supported by self-report research. However, there is relatively little experimental evidence for the effects of learning experiences on social cognitions. The current study examined the effect of observing a social performance situation with a negative outcome on childrens (8 to 11 years old) fear-related beliefs and cognitive processing. Two groups of children were each shown 1 of 2 animated films of a person trying to score in basketball while being observed by others; in 1 film, the outcome was negative, and in the other, it was neutral. Childrens fear-related beliefs about performing in front of others were measured before and after the film and children were asked to complete an emotional Stroop task. Results showed that social fear beliefs increased for children who saw the negative social performance film. In addition, these children showed an emotional Stroop bias for social-anxiety-related words compared to children who saw the neutral film. The findings have implications for our understanding of social anxiety disorder and suggest that vicarious learning experiences in childhood may contribute to the development of social anxiety.

Evaluative conditioning: missing, presumed dead

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. (Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 64, 46-64.)