Biased interpretation and memory in children with varying levels of spider fear

Abstract

This study investigated multiple cognitive biases in children simultaneously, to investigate whether spider-fearful children display an interpretation bias, a recall bias, and source monitoring errors, and whether these biases are specific for spider-related materials. Furthermore, the independent ability of these biases to predict spider fear was investigated. A total of 121 children filled out the Spider Anxiety and Disgust Screening for Children (SADS-C), and they performed an interpretation task, a memory task, and a Behavioural Assessment Test (BAT). As expected, a specific interpretation bias was found: Spider-fearful children showed more negative interpretations of ambiguous spider-related scenarios, but not of other scenarios. We also found specific source monitoring errors: Spider-fearful children made more fear-related source monitoring errors for the spider-related scenarios, but not for the other scenarios. Only limited support was found for a recall bias. Finally, interpretation bias, recall bias, and source monitoring errors predicted unique variance components of spider fear.

Keywords:

• Child psychopathology
• Spider fear
• Interpretation bias
• Memory bias
• Behavioural avoidance

The Behavioural Science Institute of Radboud University Nijmegen supported the study financially.

We thank the elementary school that participated in this study. We also thank the children and their parents who participated in the study. We are also grateful to the reviewers for helpful comments, to Paula Hertel for her help with the development of the interpretation task and the memory task, and to Liesbeth Linssen for her assistance with data analysis.

The Behavioural Science Institute of Radboud University Nijmegen supported the study financially.

We thank the elementary school that participated in this study. We also thank the children and their parents who participated in the study. We are also grateful to the reviewers for helpful comments, to Paula Hertel for her help with the development of the interpretation task and the memory task, and to Liesbeth Linssen for her assistance with data analysis.