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The Development of Anxiety in Children
My research into the development of anxiety in children can be split into three main streams:
- The effect of verbal information on the development of fears.
- The effect of vicarious learning on the development of fear.
- The Intergenerational Transmission of Fear to Children.
Verbal Information
I have been exploring the role of childhood experience in phobia acquisition (see Field & Davey, 2001; Dadds, Davey & Field, 2001). In particular I am interested in the application of Rachman's 3-pathway model to the development of fear and how these pathways might operate at certain 'hot periods' of development (i.e. times at which certain anxieties might be 'prone' to develop). Virtually all research into Rachman's model has been done retrospectively and so is prone to memory biases. I have developed a paradigm for testing his model in a prospective way and the results of my initial work can be found in Field, Argyris & Knowles (2001). I have been using this paradigm to look at various mediating factors on the effects of verbal threat information on children. The main questions I have been addressing are:
- Does threat information lead to implicit attitude change and behavioural avoidance (see Field & Lawson, 2003)
- Do the effects of threat information persist over time?
- Does a change in fear beliefs lead to avoidance behaviour or faster learning of fear contingencies?
- Are there 'hot periods' of development during which threat information is most effective in changing fear beliefs?
- Does the source of threat information have an impact on how beliefs are changed? (Field, Argyris & Knowles, 2001)
- Do dispositional factors such as behavioural inhibition system sensitivity moderate the effect of threat information in changing fear beliefs, attentional biases to threat and avoidance behaviour? (Field, 2006, JAP)
- Can we change social fear beliefs as well as animal ones (see Field, Hamilton, Knowles & Plews, 2003; Lawson, Banerjee & Field, 2006 ),
- What is the effects of threat information on attentional biases towards novel animals (Field, 2006, JCCAP)?
- What are the mechanisms underlying the effects of threat information (Field, 2006, CPR).
Vicarious Learning
A parallel line of research has been in looking into how vicarious learning affects childrens fear beliefs and behaviours. As with the verbal information research, this began with Field, Argyris & Knowles (2001) and has developed from there. Again, I developed a prospective paradigm to study how vicarious learning changes childrens cognitions and behaviours about novel animals and much of this work has been carried out by my Ph.D. student Chris Askew. The main questions that we have been addressing are:
- Does vicarious learning lead to implicit attitude change and behavioural avoidance?
- Do the effects of vicarious learning persist over time?
- What is the effects of vicarious learning on attentional biases towards novel animals?
- What are the mechanisms underlying the effects of vicarious learning.
- Does the nature of the US affect vicarious learning?
The Intergenerational Transmission of Fear to Children
It is now well-established that there is a connection between parental anxiety and child anxiety. However, exactly how anxious parents transmit their fear to their children is relatively unclear. I'm currently involved in several projects with Dr. Sam Cartwright-Hatton (University of Manchester) including a 3-year ESRC funded project, that aim to investigate the mechanisms through which parents transmit fears to their children, or more broadly, how parenting affects the development of anxiety. The main questions that we are trying to address are are:
- Are cognitive-behavioural interventions aimed at parents successful in treating child anxiety (I am the statistician on Sam's PACman clinical trial)?
- We have been developing a new measure of parenting to be used in clinical settings.
- Do anxious parents show cognitive biases towards child-related threat?
- How does parental anxiety interact with verbal information and vicarious learning to create anxiety in children (Field, Ball, Kawycz, & Moore, 2007).
Grants
- 2007-2010: ESRC RES-062-23-0406 Project Grant (3 Years). Parental Anxiety: Cognitive-Behavioural Processes in the Intergenerational Transmission of Fear to Children. PI with Sam Cartwright-Hatton (University of Manchester) as co-applicant. £285,064,
- 2005-2007: ESRC Research Seminars: Child Anxiety: Developments in Theory and Treatment. Main applicant with Sam Cartwright-Hatton (Manchester), Shirley Reynolds (UEA) Cathy Creswell (Reading) as co-applicants. £15, 234. To find out about these meetings click here.
- 2002-2005: ESRC (R000239591). The role of information in the development of fear beliefs, PI with Robin Banerjee as co-applicant. To find out more about this work go to the project homepage. £130,825
Students
- Dr. Chris Askew (D.Phil. Completed 2007)
- Dr. Joanne Lawson (D.Phil. Completed 2006)
Current Collaborators
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