(ORDO NEWS) — Many fears develop in childhood, and it is natural that children learn to fear certain things by watching their parents’ reactions.
However, as Canadian researchers found out, the success of such training depends on many factors.
By watching their parents, children adopt a variety of behaviors, including fear of certain objects that the child has not encountered.
For example, baby monkeys learn to be afraid of snakes by watching adults panic when they see a reptile, and human children can be afraid of bees all their lives if they see one of their parents stung by a striped insect.
However, not every parent-child pair will be successful in learning: as researchers from the University of Montreal (Canada) found out, emotional attachment to the parent and physiological coincidence with him play the greatest role.
The latter is understood as the phenomenon of synchronization of physiological signals (heartbeat, sweating, etc.) of two people who are in close interaction, for example, parents and a child or couples in love.
The experiment involved 84 pairs of people, consisting of a parent (mothers and fathers were approximately equal) and a child aged eight to 12 years.
To begin with, the scientists filmed the procedure of “teaching fear” of parents before a light bulb of a certain color came on (if the blue light was on, the person felt a slight electric shock, if it was yellow, then there was no shock), after which the children were allowed to watch the received videos.
Then a similar experiment with light bulbs of two colors was carried out on children, but electric shocks were not used. The manifestation of fear was recorded through sweating in both children and parents.
After the end of the experiment, the children filled out a questionnaire, the results of which made it possible to assess the degree of attachment between parent and child.
It turned out that the higher the physiological coincidence between the parent and the child, the more frightened the child when he was placed in experimental conditions in which he had previously seen the parent.
However, if the child’s attachment to the parent was high, physiological coincidence did not play a special role: in any case, the child emotionally experienced the parent’s unpleasant experience and quickly learned to be afraid.
Despite the unconditional adaptability of fear learning through observation, it can do a disservice to the child if the parent, for example, suffers from a phobia or post-traumatic stress disorder.
To avoid this, the researchers recommend that members of such families regularly visit a psychotherapist: this will help parents learn to take external manifestations of fear under control, and children learn to distinguish their own fear from those imposed by other people.
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