Developmental aspects of fear: comparing the acquisition and generalization of conditioned fear in children and adults

  • Most research on human fear conditioning and its generalization has focused on adults whereas only little is known about these processes in children. Direct comparisons between child and adult populations are needed to determine developmental risk markers of fear and anxiety. We compared 267 children and 285 adults in a differential fear conditioning paradigm and generalization test. Skin conductance responses (SCR) and ratings of valence and arousal were obtained to indicate fear learning. Both groups displayed robust and similar differential conditioning on subjective and physiological levels. However, children showed heightened fear generalization compared to adults as indexed by higher arousal ratings and SCR to the generalization stimuli. Results indicate overgeneralization of conditioned fear as a developmental correlate of fear learning. The developmental change from a shallow to a steeper generalization gradient is likely related to the maturation of brain structures that modulate efficient discrimination between danger and (ambiguous) safety cues.

Download full text files

Export metadata

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar
Metadaten
Author:Miriam A. Schiele, Julia Reinhard, Andreas ReifORCiDGND, Katharina Domschke, Marcel Romano, Jürgen DeckertORCiDGND, Paul PauliORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-422511
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21393
ISSN:1939-0599
ISSN:0012-1649
Pubmed Id:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26798984
Parent Title (English):Developmental psychology
Publisher:Arlington, Va. [u.a.]
Place of publication:American Psychological Association
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2016
Date of first Publication:2016/01/22
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2017/02/06
Tag:development; fear conditioning; fear generalization; maturation; skin conductance
Volume:58
Page Number:11
First Page:471
Last Page:481
Note:
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
HeBIS-PPN:453771645
Institutes:Medizin / Medizin
Dewey Decimal Classification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitung 4.0