Behav. Res. Thu. Vol. 29, No. 5, Pp. 495502, 1991
0005-7967/91$3.00+ 0.00 Copyright 0 1991Pergamon Press plc
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
WHAT IS THE REVISED FEAR SURVEY SCHEDULE FOR CHILDREN MEASURING? HELEN MCCATIIIE and SUSAN H. SPENCE* Department of Psychology, A16, University of Sydney, N.S.W. 2006, Australia (Received I4 January 1991)
Summary-This study was designed to investigate parameters of children’s fear in terms of frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour. It is suggested that current measures such as the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R) do not assess fearful behaviour in the sense of the occurrence of fearful responding in daily life, but rather reflect a negative affective response to the thought of occurrence of specific events. A modified version of the FSSC-R examined the frequency of fearful thoughts/feelings and avoidance activities amongst 376 children aged 7-12 yr. Contrary to predictions, it was found that children reported high levels of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour to those items identified as the greatest fears on the FSSC-R, namely fears of injury, illness, death and danger. These events were typically of low probability (e.g. earthquakes) and the question was raised as to what children are responding to when they are asked to rate their fearful responses. The same pattern of results was reflected in older compared to younger children. It is suggested that even when children are asked to rate frequency of fearful thoughts or avoidance behaviour, they tend to respond to fear questionnaire items according to their affective response to the image or thought of the stimulus situation rather than their actual fear responses. Both the FSSC-R and the modified version were found to discriminate between teacher nominated high and low fearful children and to correlate significantly with a self report measure of anxiety.
INTRODUCTION
Fears can be described as reactions to perceived threatening stimuli and may be manifest in terms of physiological, cognitive and overt behavioural responses. Physiological reactions may include responses such as sweating and heart palpitations, whereas overt behavioural responses typically include a range of actions designed to reduce contact with the feared stimulus. Cognitive components of fearful behaviour include the subjective feeling of distress and related negative thoughts concerning the aversive nature of the feared object. Although a great deal of research has been conducted into the nature of fears in adults, much less is known about children’s fears. Relatively little is known about the motoric, cognitive and physiological aspects of children’s fears and the stimuli which generate such responses. Much of our knowledge concerning the type of stimuli feared by children has been generated by research using parent or child surveys that list a wide range of potentially fear inducing stimuli. Perhaps the most commonly used instrument for this purpose has been the Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC; Scherer & Nakamura, 1968) and its revision (FSSC-R; Ollendick, 1983). The FSSC-R asks children to rate how much fear they have concerning a specific stimulus (none, some, a lot). The standard instructions state “A number of statements which boys and girls use to describe the fears they have are given below. Read each fear carefully and place an X in the box in front of the words which best describe your fear. There are no right and wrong answers. Remember, find the word which best describes how much fear you have” (Ollendick, 1983, p. 686). Several studies have now been published concerning the FSSC-R. The results suggest that the most common fears reported by boys and girls in the 8-l 1 yr age range relate to danger and death (Ollendick, 1983; King, Ollier, Lacuone, Schuster, Bays, Gullone & Ollendick, 1989). For example, children tend to report being most fearful of events related to physical injury or danger, such as not being able to breath, earthquakes, falling from high places, being hit by a car or truck, bombing attacks or being invaded and fire or getting burned. Whereas it is perhaps sensible to suggest that these events would be extremely fear producing if they were to occur, they are not highly probable events. Given such low probability of occurrence, it seems unlikely that children frequently worry *Author for correspondence. 495
496
HELENMCCATHIE and SUSAN H. SPENCE
about these events or engage in avoidance behaviour in order to prevent their occurrence. From a clinical perspective such information is important in the assessment of fears that are of sufficient magnitude as to interfere with the child’s daily living. It is therefore important to consider what exactly the FSSC-R is measuring when children rate their degree of fear for a particular event. Are the children responding in terms of the amount of fear that they would experience if such an event actually happened, the frequency with which they experience fearful thoughts about the stimulus events or the occurrence of behaviours designed to avoid or prevent the occurrence of the target event? If we are to fully understand the nature of fears in children, it is important that these different aspects of fearful behaviour are explored. In particular, we need to examine the frequency with which children experience fearful responses related to specific events and the extent to which these fears result in avoidance behaviour. To date, our knowledge of these parameters of children’s fears is minimal and it is unclear whether children’s response to surveys such as the FSSC-R actually reflects the existence of fearful behaviour in terms of physiological and cognitive responses and avoidance behaviours. The present study examined the frequency with which children experience fears in terms of worrying or having frightened feelings about specific stimuli and the degree to which the fear results in avoidance behaviours. In order to achieve this goal, the wording of the FSSC-R was changed so that the frequency of fearful thoughts or feelings and avoidance behaviours were assessed for each fear stimulus. It was then possible to compare the results with the pattern of fears reported if the traditional wording of the FSSC-R is used. It was predicted that a different pattern of children’s fears will emerge if questions are asked concerning the frequency of worry or fearful thoughts about events, or avoidance behaviours rather than being asked to rate the degree of fear concerning events as is the case for the traditional wording of the FSSC-R. Specifically, it was predicted that fearful thoughts or feelings and avoidance behaviour would be more likely to occur in relation to more probable events (e.g. spiders or making mistakes), rather than improbable stimuli such as earthquakes or being burned by fire. The study was conducted in two parts, the first of which involved a large scale survey of self reported fears amongst 7-13 yr olds, designed to compare responses to the FSSC-R using traditional wording compared to a modified version that examined frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour. The second part of the study then evaluated the discriminant validity of the fear questionnaires in terms of the responses of highly fearful children compared to their least fearful peers. Concurrent validity was examined by comparing the relationship of both fear questionnaires with the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC; Spielberger, 1970).
METHOD
Subjects Children were selected from six State schools in the Sydney Metropolitan area. These schools were selected on the basis of serving postcode areas which were representative of Metropolitan New South Wales in terms of the proportion of persons born in Australia, birthplace of persons born overseas, proficiency in the English language and annual income of the household as determined by the 1986 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census. Permission for participation was obtained from the N.S.W. Department of Education. The final sample of children consisted of 203 girls and 173 boys (total n = 376) whose parents returned a signed permission form to the school giving consent for their child to participate in the research. This sample formed 53% of the total population of children in Grades 3-6 of the six schools. The remaining children were excluded from participation on the basis of absence from school on the day of assessment, inadequate English language skills as judged by the class teacher, receiving Special Education, not having lived in Australia for at least 6 months, or lack of a returned parental permission form. The sample of children selected for the concurrent and discriminant validity study consisted of children from four local Catholic Education schools. The relationship between responses on the fear questionnaires and the STAIC was evaluated with 127 children (72 boys and 55 girls) in Grades 3-6 of these schools. The discriminant validity study involved 46 children from these same schools, selected by class teachers who were asked to nominate three children in their class to whom the following definition would most apply and three to whom it would least apply: “Fearful or anxious
Assessment of children’s fears
491
children display excessive worry, tension or uneasiness to a present or anticipated event. It could concern such things as separation from those to whom children are attached, excessive shyness with unfamiliar people, a persistent fear of an object or a situation, or the children may be generally fearful or anxious”. Twenty-three most fearful (14 boys and 9 girls) and 23 least fearful children (14 boys and 9 girls) were identified by teachers and were selected as matches in terms of age and sex. Selection criteria for all samples were identical to those outlined above. Measures Fear Survey Schedule for
Children-Revised (FSSC-R; Ollendick, 1983). This self report questionnaire consists of 80 fear stimuli to which children are asked to report their level of fear on a 3 point scale. The standard instructions state “A number of statements which boys and girls use to describe the fears they have are given below. Read each fear carefully and place an X in the box in front of the words which best describe your fear. There are no right and wrong answers. Remember, find the word which best describes how much fear you have” (Ollendick, 1983, p. 686). One point is scored for a response of ‘none’, two points for a response of ‘some’ and 3 points for a rating of ‘a lot’. For the purposes of the present study the wording of 7 items was changed slightly so as to be more easily understood by the Australian sample (e.g. Item 21 ‘Getting a shot from the doctor’ was changed to ‘Getting an injection from the nurse or doctor’. For interest, an additional item ‘nuclear war’ was added to the FSSC-R as this item was included by King et al. (1989) and was nominated as the most common fear amongst their sample. This item was not, however, included in the statistical analyses in order to provide comparison with previous studies such as Ollendick (1983) that did not include this item. Fear Frequency and Avoidance Survey Schedule for Children (FFASSC). The adapted questionnaire contained identical items to the FSSC-R but the wording of the question was altered. Children were asked to make two responses to each fear item. The first question concerned the frequency of fear responses: ‘How often do you worry or have frightening feelings about’: . . . fear stimulus . . . ‘Never’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘Every Day’? The second question assessed the impact of the fear in terms of avoidance behaviour: ‘How much do you have to stop doing things or avoid situations because of your fear of’: . . . fear stimulus . . . ‘Not at all’, ‘A little’, ‘A lot’? Both responses were rated on a l-3 scale of increasing intensity. This wording was selected after several pilot attempts to produce a question format that was understood by children as young as Grade 3. State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC; Spielberger, 1970). The STAIC includes two self-report scales for measuring state and trait anxiety. The A-Trait scale was considered to be of particular interest in the present study as it was designed to evaluate anxiety proneness or detection of neurotic behavioural tendencies in elementary school children (Spielberger, 1970). The A-Trait scale consists of 21 items which consider how the child usually feels. Responses are scored on a l-3 point scale ranging from ‘hardly ever’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the scale have been reported to be satisfactory (Spielberger, 1970). Procedure
Children were administered the FSSC-R and the FFASSC in counterbalanced order. Assessment took place in the classroom under the instruction of the first author who read aloud the instructions. An example of a fear stimulus (sharks) which was not listed in the scale was provided in order to illustrate the method of questionnaire completion. Each item was then read aloud as the children marked their responses. In addition to collection of data for each questionnaire from the 376 children, test-retest data was obtained from 45 children (28 boys and 17 girls) from one of the six participating State schools. These pupils completed both questionnaires on two occasions, 6 weeks apart. The concurrent validity sample completed both fear questionnaires and the STAIC in counterbalanced order. RESULTS
Mean fear responses
The mean fear scores for the normative sample are shown for the FSSC-R and FFASSC by grade and sex in Table 1. Analysis of variance revealed a significant gender effect [F(1,368) = 68.99,
HELEN MCCATHIE
498
and
SUSAN H. SPENCE
Table 1. Mean fear scores for boys and girls by grade and gender for each fear questionnaire
FSSC Revised Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade
5
Grade 6
Mean (n = 376)
SD
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys
168.28 117.90 139.04 124.11 142.00 128.80 134.89 120.77 135.11
24.90 26.30 29.18 24.40 28.98 25.96 19.86 23.41 28.94
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls BOYS
146.10 110.37 131.47 120.54 137.35 126.97 130.20 117.20 128.64
26.88 24.84 26.21 26.80 24.26 24.05 18.87 19.24 26.33
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys
146.64 110.32 127.45 121.20 133.01 125.02 125.02 114.05 126.46
29.66 27.10 28.08 28.31 27.16 25.81 23.21 21.04 28.49
Entire sample FFASC Frequency Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade
5
Grade 6 Entire sample FFASC Avoidance Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade
5
Grade 6 Entire sample
P < O.OOl] for the FSSC-R,
the FFASSC Frequency measure [F(1,368) = 50.39, P < O.OOl] and the FFASSC Avoidance measure [F(1,368) = 32.65, P -C O.OOl] with girls showing a higher mean fear rating compared to boys on each of these scales. A significant grade effect was also found for each questionnaire [FSSC-R, F(3,368) = 68.99, P < 0.001; FFASSC Frequency, F(3,368) = 50.39, P < 0.001; FFASSC Avoidance, F(3,368) = 32.65, P < O.OOl]. Inspection of Table 1 reveals that children in Grade 3 tended to report higher total fear scores compared to older children. However, the significant grade by gender effect for each questionnaire [FSSC-R, F(3,368) = 8.48; FFASSC Frequency, F(3,368) = 6.14; FFASSC Avoidance, F(3,368) = 6.75, P < O.OOl] suggests that this effect was predominantly found for girls, whereas boys showed minimal change in self reported fear with age. Prevalence
of fears
In keeping with the work of Ollendick (1983) the prevalence of fears was determined from the mean number of stimulus items that received the maximum rating (i.e. scores of 3) for each child. On the FSSC-R, girls rated more fears at the maximum level (X = 17.96) than boys (X = 10.27). The pattern of greater fearfulness amongst girls was also reflected in the FFASSC Frequency measure (girls X = 11.96; boys X = 6.82) and FFASSC Avoidance measure (girls X = 13.07; boys X = 7.89). The most common fears were then derived from the percentage of children who gave each stimulus the maximum rating. The 15 most common fears for girls and boys as identified by each questionnaire are shown in Tables 2-4. These items primarily concern physical danger and safety and were very similar for the FSSC-R and the Frequency and Avoidance measures of the FFASSC. Given that the patterns of most feared stimuli were extremely similar for the FSSC-R and the Frequency and Avoidance measures of the FFASSC, which was contrary to predictions, two possible explanations for the findings were examined. First it was possible that the younger children had failed to understand the meaning of the frequency of fearful thoughts and feelings and avoidance questions and had responded to the items according to the degree of fear that would be experienced if the event was to occur. In order to explore this hypothesis, the 10 most common fears were determined separately for the older children in the lo-12 yr age group who should
Assessment of children’s fears Table 2. The ten most common
499
fears (rated 3 ‘a lot’) on the FSSC-R No. of reS”OnseS
Percentage of samole
213 207 206 166 164 155 I54 147 146 I38
56.64 55.05 54.78 44.14 43.61 41.22 40.95 39.09 38.82 36.70
Boys Not being able to breathe Being hit by a car or truck Nuclear war Falling from high places Earthquakes Fire-getting burned Germs or getting a serious illness Bombing attacks or being invaded A burglar breaking into your house Guns
89 89 88 63 61 60 57 56 48 45
51.44 51.44 50.81 36.41 35.26 34.68 32.94 32.36 27.74 26.01
(C) Girls 76 Not being able to breathe 8 I Nuclear war 41 Being hit by a car or truck 26 A burglar breaking into your house 34 Fire-getting burned 58 Falling from high places 9 Death or dead people 72 Earthquakes 32 Guns 20 Bombine attacks or beine invaded
124 II0 II7 106 104 103 99 94 93 91
61.08 58.62 57.60 52.21 51.23 50.73 48.76 45.81 44.33 44.82
Item descriotion (A) Boys and Girls 76 Not being able to breathe 8 I Nuclear war 41 Being hit by a car or truck 58 Falling from high places 34 Fire-getting burned 72 Earthquakes 26 A burglar breaking into your house 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 70 Germs or getting a serious illness 9 Death or dead people (B) 76 41 8I 58 72 34 70 20 26 32
Table 3. The ten most common fears (rated 3: ‘every day’) on the FFASC-Frequency scale Item description
No. of responses
Percentage of sample
Table 4. The ten most common fears on the FFASC-Avoidance measure (rated 3, ‘a lot’) Item descrimion
No. of responses
Percentage of sample
(A) 81 76 41 26 20 34 32 72 58 9
Boys and Girls Nuclear war Not being able to breathe Being hit by a car or truck A burglar breaking into your house Bombing attacks or being invaded Fire-getting burned Guns Earthquakes Falling from high places Death or dead people
139 I38 137 127 II3 106 102 99 98 96
36.96 36.70 36.43 33.77 30.05 28. I9 27.12 26.32 26.06 25.53
iA) Bow and Girl5 kl Nuclear war 76 Not being able to breathe 26 A burglar breaking into your house 41 Being hit by a car or truck 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 9 Death or dead people 58 Falling from high places 32 GU”S 70 Germs or getting a serious illness 72 Earthquakes
147 I44 I32 124 II7 107 106 104 I04 104
39.09 38.29 35.10 32.97 31.11 28.45 28.19 27.65 27.65 27.65
(B) 41 81 76 20 34 58 38 26 72 70
Boys Being hit by a car or truck Nuclear war Not being able to breathe Bombing attacks or being invaded Fire-getting burned Falling from high places Having to eat foods you don’t like A burglar breaking into your house Earthquakes Germs or getting a serious illness
59 57 48 40 39 38 36 36 35 34
34. IO 32.94 27.74 23.12 22.52 21.76 20.80 20.80 20.23 19.65
(B) Boys 81 Nuclear war 76 Not being able to breathe 41 Being hit by a car or truck 26 A burglar breaking into your house 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 72 Earthquakes 34 Fire-getting burned 70 Germs or getting a serious illness 58 Falling from high places 38 Having to eat foods you don’t like
60 58 54 43 41 40 40 39 39 3s
34.68 33.52 31.21 24.85 23.69 23.12 23.12 22.54 22.54 20.23
(C) Girls 26 A burglar breaking into your house 76 Not being able to breathe 81 Nuclear war 41 Being hit by a car or truck 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 32 Guns 34 Fire-getting burned 9 Death or dead people 72 Earthquakes 58 Falling from high places
91 90 82 78 73 70 67 65 64 60
44.82 44.33 40.39 38.42 35.96 34.48 33.00 32.01 31.52 29.55
(C) Girls 26 A burglar breaking into your house 8 1 Nuclear war 76 Not being able to breathe 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 9 Death or dead people 32 Guns 41 Being hit by a car or truck 58 Falling from high places 70 Germs or getting a serious illness IO Getting lost in a strange place
89 87 86 76 72 70 70 67 65 64
43.84 42.85 42.36 37.43 35.46 34.48 34.48 33.00 32.01 31.52
500
HELEN MCCATHE and SUSANW. SPENCE
certainly have been capable of understanding the concept of frequency of fear thoughts and avoidance activities. The results replicated those of the total sample, indicating that the findings were unlikely to reflect the inability of the younger children to understand the instructions. Second, the possibility was considered that completion of the FFASSC after the FSSC-R may have biased the results if children tended to repeat response patterns made on the first questionnaire. In order to examine this hypothesis, the most common fears were examined for the FFASSC depending upon whether it was administered first or second in the counterbalanced order. No difference in the pattern of most common fears was found according to the order of questionnaire administration. Overall, the 15 most common fears were extremely similar for the FSSC-R, the FFASSC Frequency and Avoidance measures, the pattern being similar for boys compared to girls, older versus younger children and being independent of order of question.nai~~ administration. These fears typically concerned physical danger and safety and closely matched those reported by Ollendick (1983) and King et al. (1989). Factor analysis
Data from the 376 children were submitted to iterative principal-axis factor analysis with varimax rotation in order to produce a five-factor solution for each questionnaire. Five factors were selected given previous research {e.g. Ollendick, 1983) which suggests that five factors produces the most meaningful structure for the FSSC-R. Only those items which loaded in excess of 0.30 were included in the factor structure. Given that detailed info~ation relating to the factor structure of the FSSC-R has been reported elsewhere (Ollendick, 1983) only a brief summary is presented here. For the FSSC-R, five factors were extracted with eigenvalues in excess of 1.0, accounting for a total of 41.3% of the variance between questionnaire items. This compares with 77% of the variance accounted for by Ollendick’s (1983) five-factor solution. The first three factors resembled those reported by Ollendick (1983) and related to: (1) fear of death and danger, (2) fear of the unknown~smal~ animals and (3) fear of failure and criticism. The last two factors accounted for only 2.4 and 2.2% of the variance respectively. Although the genera1 content areas were similar for the factor structure of the FSSC-R in the present study compared of those of Ollendick (1983). the distribution of the variance across factors differed as did the exact items included in each factor. The five-factor solution for the FFASSC Frequency measure and FFASSC Avoidance measure produced factor structures that were similar to the FSSC-R. Factor t of the FFASSC Frequency scale accounted for 26.3% of the variance in item scores and concerned fears of danger, injury, illness and death whereas Factor 2 accounted for 5.1% of the variance and contained items related to fear of failure and criticism. Factor 3 accounted for only 3.6% of the variance and related to fears of unknown (e.g. going to bed in the dark, being alone, dark places). The remaining factors concerned medical fears (plus some miscellaneous items) and fears of animals. The FFASSC Avoidance scale produced a five-factor solution accounting for 40.2% of the variance. These factors mirrored those produced for the Frequency of fear measure (i.e. danger~iliness/inj~y~death~ failure and criticism; the unknowing miscellaneo~s~ animals). Of all the scales, the FFASSC Frequency measure appeared to produce the factor structure in which the factors contained items that clearly related to specific areas. Internal consistency
The internal consistency of each scale was determined for the FSSC-R [co-efficient tl (n = 375) = 0.971, FFSSC Frequency [co-efficient c( (n = 375) = 0.961 and FFSSC Avoidance [co-efficient CI(n = 375) = 0,97]. These results are in keeping with those reported by Ollendick et al. (1989) for a combined U.S. and Australian sample. Temporal stability
Pearson product moment correlation co-efiicients were dete~ined for each questionnaire between the two occasions. Temporal stability for totat fear scores over the 6 week period was found to be excellent for all measures [FSSC-R, ~(45) = 0,83; FFASSC Frequency, ~(45) = 0.80; Avoidance, r{45) = 0.793.
501
Assessment of children’s fears Table 5. Mean fear scores of the most-fearful and least-fearful FSSC-R and FFASC Most fearful group
on the
Least fearful group
Mean (n %= 23)
SD
Mean (n = 23)
SD
145.56 138.43 141.34 37.57
29.28 28.25 30.29 7.78
128.78 121.56 115.82 35.00
22.04 18.54 22.83 8.26
I
FSSC-R FFASC-F FFASC-A STAI-Trait
groups
~
I
Concurrent validity Correlations between trait anxiety on the STAI-C and the three fear measures were all significant [FSSC-R, r(127) = 0.64; FFASSC Frequency, r(127) = 0.66; Avoidance, r(127) = 0.681 suggesting moderate to high concurrent validity for each of the fear scales. Intercorrelations between fear questionnaires Strong correlations were found correlated significantly with the Avoidance [r(n,127) = 0.82, P < between the FFASSC frequency FFASSC Avoidance.
between the three versions of the fear questionnaire. The FSSC-R FFASSC frequency [r(n,127) = 0.82, P < O.OOl] and FFASSC O.OOl] measures. Similarly a significant correlation was found and FFASSC avoidance scales [r(n,127) = 0.88, P < O.OOl] and
Discriminant validity The scores for the 3 fear measures and STAI-C Trait for the teacher-nominated ‘most fearful’ children were compared with the ‘least fearful’ group. The means scores for each variable are shown in Table 5. The mean scores differed significantly for ‘most fearful’ compared to ‘least fearful’ children on the FSSC-R [F( 1,44) = 4.82, P < 0.051, FFASSC Frequency [F( 1,44) = 6.33, P < 0.051 and FFASSC Avoidance [F(1,44) = 10.41, P < 0.011 scales. Interestingly, no significance difference between most and least fearful children was found for the STAIC Trait scale, indicating that the difference between groups was specific to a fear dimension rather than generalized fear-anxiety.
DISCUSSION
This study explored the frequency of children’s fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours related to specific feared stimuli. The results demonstrated that, contrary to predictions, there was a strong similarity between children’s response to the FSSC-R and the restructed version of the questionnaire that examined frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours. It was surprising to find that children reported that their most frequent fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours related to events which were almost identical to those stimuli that were the most common fears on the FSSC-R where children are asked to “find the word which best describes how much fear you have”. These stimuli involved injury or danger (e.g. nuclear war, not being able to breath, being hit by a truck, bombing attacks, earthquakes or fire-getting burned). This finding occurred irrespective of the order of presentation of the questionnaires and the age group or sex of the children. Hence, the results are unlikely to be attributed to the inability of younger children to understand the concept of frequency of fearful thoughts or feelings. It was expected that low probability events such as being hit by a truck or earthquakes which are typically nominated by children as producing high levels of fear on the FSSC-R would not be frequently thought about nor lead to any form of avoidance behaviour. This expectation was not confirmed by the result of the present study. According to the data, children report high frequency (daily) fearful thoughts and feelings about relatively improbable dangerous situations and report having to stop activities or avoid situations because of their fear of the situation. Whilst this may be understandable for a situation such as being hit by a truck, it is difficult to image what situations could be avoided because of a fear of earthquakes This was particularly true when the study was conducted given that there had only been two minor earthquakes reported in Australia over the previous 25 yr. The Australian, Newcastle earthquake occurred 1 month after the end of the study
502
HELEN MCCATHIE and SUSAN H. SPENCE
The children’s response to the FSSC-R confirmed the findings reported previously by Ollendick (1983), King et al. (1989) and Ollendick, King and Frary (1989). Girls tended to report more fears than boys, the number of fears tended to decline with age (particularly for girls) and mean values for the total fear score were similar to those of previous studies. The most common fears reported closely reflected those identified in prior studies and primarily concerned fears of injury, death or danger. The factor structure also resembled that reported previously, with the three main factors relating to danger/death, the unknown and failure/criticism. This suggests that the children in the present study were not different in some way from previously researched samples and that they were attending to the questionnaire instructions and responding appropriately. What explanations can be proposed then to account for such marked similarity in response for frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours compared to a single rating of how much fear a child has for a particular object? One possibility is that children, even between the ages of 10 and 12, have difficulty in understanding the concepts of frequency and avoidance. The wording of the adapted questionnaire asked ‘How much do you worry about or have frightened feelings about’ . . never; sometimes; every day? and ‘How much do you have to stop doing things or avoid situations because of your fear of . . . not at all; a little; a lot? Although these question formats were selected after several pilot attempts to ensure comprehension of concepts, it is possible that children tended to respond to each stimulus item in terms of their immediate affective response to the question item. Hence, the stimulus items concerning improbable but life threatening events such as nuclear war or earthquakes may generate a negative affective response which leads children to rate the question according to this affective response, rather than the actual frequency of fearful thoughts or feelings and avoidance behaviours. If a similar effect is operating for the FSSC-R, then this would explain the marked similarity in findings for the different versions of the questionnaire and the extremely high correlations between them. The point still remains that we do not really know what the FSSC-R is measuring and it is possible that the information produced merely reflects an affective reaction to the thought of stimuli if they were to occur, rather than reflecting the child’s fearful behaviour in terms of frequency of fear thoughts or avoidance behaviours. Research is needed which examines the cognitive and avoidance behaviour aspects of fears in children. Future studies could perhaps use self monitoring as a means of examining the frequency of fearful thoughts and the fear stimuli involved. Similarly, self monitoring could be used to investigate avoidance behaviours. Psychophysiological studies may also cast light on those events that lead to greatest fear responses in terms of physiological reactions. REFERENCES King, N. J., Ollier, K., Lacuone, R., Schuster, S., Bays, K., Gullone, E. & Ollendick, T. H. (1989). The fears of children and adolescents in Australian: A cross-sectional study using the Revised-Fear Survey Schedule for Children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 775-784. Ollendick, T. H. (1983). Reliability and validity of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC-R). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21, 685-692. Ollendick, T. H., King, N. J. & Frary, R. B. (1989). Fears in children and adolescents: Reliability and generalizability across gender, age and nationality. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 19-27. Scherer, M. W. & Nakamura, C. Y. (1968). A Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSS-FC): A factor analytic comparison with manifest anxiety (CMAS). Behauiour Research and Therapy, 6, 173-182. Spielberger, C. D. (1970). State-Trait Anxiety Inuenfory for children. Palo Alto, Calif.: Consulting Psychological Press.
0005-7967/91$3.00+ 0.00 Copyright 0 1991Pergamon Press plc
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
WHAT IS THE REVISED FEAR SURVEY SCHEDULE FOR CHILDREN MEASURING? HELEN MCCATIIIE and SUSAN H. SPENCE* Department of Psychology, A16, University of Sydney, N.S.W. 2006, Australia (Received I4 January 1991)
Summary-This study was designed to investigate parameters of children’s fear in terms of frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour. It is suggested that current measures such as the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R) do not assess fearful behaviour in the sense of the occurrence of fearful responding in daily life, but rather reflect a negative affective response to the thought of occurrence of specific events. A modified version of the FSSC-R examined the frequency of fearful thoughts/feelings and avoidance activities amongst 376 children aged 7-12 yr. Contrary to predictions, it was found that children reported high levels of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour to those items identified as the greatest fears on the FSSC-R, namely fears of injury, illness, death and danger. These events were typically of low probability (e.g. earthquakes) and the question was raised as to what children are responding to when they are asked to rate their fearful responses. The same pattern of results was reflected in older compared to younger children. It is suggested that even when children are asked to rate frequency of fearful thoughts or avoidance behaviour, they tend to respond to fear questionnaire items according to their affective response to the image or thought of the stimulus situation rather than their actual fear responses. Both the FSSC-R and the modified version were found to discriminate between teacher nominated high and low fearful children and to correlate significantly with a self report measure of anxiety.
INTRODUCTION
Fears can be described as reactions to perceived threatening stimuli and may be manifest in terms of physiological, cognitive and overt behavioural responses. Physiological reactions may include responses such as sweating and heart palpitations, whereas overt behavioural responses typically include a range of actions designed to reduce contact with the feared stimulus. Cognitive components of fearful behaviour include the subjective feeling of distress and related negative thoughts concerning the aversive nature of the feared object. Although a great deal of research has been conducted into the nature of fears in adults, much less is known about children’s fears. Relatively little is known about the motoric, cognitive and physiological aspects of children’s fears and the stimuli which generate such responses. Much of our knowledge concerning the type of stimuli feared by children has been generated by research using parent or child surveys that list a wide range of potentially fear inducing stimuli. Perhaps the most commonly used instrument for this purpose has been the Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC; Scherer & Nakamura, 1968) and its revision (FSSC-R; Ollendick, 1983). The FSSC-R asks children to rate how much fear they have concerning a specific stimulus (none, some, a lot). The standard instructions state “A number of statements which boys and girls use to describe the fears they have are given below. Read each fear carefully and place an X in the box in front of the words which best describe your fear. There are no right and wrong answers. Remember, find the word which best describes how much fear you have” (Ollendick, 1983, p. 686). Several studies have now been published concerning the FSSC-R. The results suggest that the most common fears reported by boys and girls in the 8-l 1 yr age range relate to danger and death (Ollendick, 1983; King, Ollier, Lacuone, Schuster, Bays, Gullone & Ollendick, 1989). For example, children tend to report being most fearful of events related to physical injury or danger, such as not being able to breath, earthquakes, falling from high places, being hit by a car or truck, bombing attacks or being invaded and fire or getting burned. Whereas it is perhaps sensible to suggest that these events would be extremely fear producing if they were to occur, they are not highly probable events. Given such low probability of occurrence, it seems unlikely that children frequently worry *Author for correspondence. 495
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about these events or engage in avoidance behaviour in order to prevent their occurrence. From a clinical perspective such information is important in the assessment of fears that are of sufficient magnitude as to interfere with the child’s daily living. It is therefore important to consider what exactly the FSSC-R is measuring when children rate their degree of fear for a particular event. Are the children responding in terms of the amount of fear that they would experience if such an event actually happened, the frequency with which they experience fearful thoughts about the stimulus events or the occurrence of behaviours designed to avoid or prevent the occurrence of the target event? If we are to fully understand the nature of fears in children, it is important that these different aspects of fearful behaviour are explored. In particular, we need to examine the frequency with which children experience fearful responses related to specific events and the extent to which these fears result in avoidance behaviour. To date, our knowledge of these parameters of children’s fears is minimal and it is unclear whether children’s response to surveys such as the FSSC-R actually reflects the existence of fearful behaviour in terms of physiological and cognitive responses and avoidance behaviours. The present study examined the frequency with which children experience fears in terms of worrying or having frightened feelings about specific stimuli and the degree to which the fear results in avoidance behaviours. In order to achieve this goal, the wording of the FSSC-R was changed so that the frequency of fearful thoughts or feelings and avoidance behaviours were assessed for each fear stimulus. It was then possible to compare the results with the pattern of fears reported if the traditional wording of the FSSC-R is used. It was predicted that a different pattern of children’s fears will emerge if questions are asked concerning the frequency of worry or fearful thoughts about events, or avoidance behaviours rather than being asked to rate the degree of fear concerning events as is the case for the traditional wording of the FSSC-R. Specifically, it was predicted that fearful thoughts or feelings and avoidance behaviour would be more likely to occur in relation to more probable events (e.g. spiders or making mistakes), rather than improbable stimuli such as earthquakes or being burned by fire. The study was conducted in two parts, the first of which involved a large scale survey of self reported fears amongst 7-13 yr olds, designed to compare responses to the FSSC-R using traditional wording compared to a modified version that examined frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviour. The second part of the study then evaluated the discriminant validity of the fear questionnaires in terms of the responses of highly fearful children compared to their least fearful peers. Concurrent validity was examined by comparing the relationship of both fear questionnaires with the Spielberger State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC; Spielberger, 1970).
METHOD
Subjects Children were selected from six State schools in the Sydney Metropolitan area. These schools were selected on the basis of serving postcode areas which were representative of Metropolitan New South Wales in terms of the proportion of persons born in Australia, birthplace of persons born overseas, proficiency in the English language and annual income of the household as determined by the 1986 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census. Permission for participation was obtained from the N.S.W. Department of Education. The final sample of children consisted of 203 girls and 173 boys (total n = 376) whose parents returned a signed permission form to the school giving consent for their child to participate in the research. This sample formed 53% of the total population of children in Grades 3-6 of the six schools. The remaining children were excluded from participation on the basis of absence from school on the day of assessment, inadequate English language skills as judged by the class teacher, receiving Special Education, not having lived in Australia for at least 6 months, or lack of a returned parental permission form. The sample of children selected for the concurrent and discriminant validity study consisted of children from four local Catholic Education schools. The relationship between responses on the fear questionnaires and the STAIC was evaluated with 127 children (72 boys and 55 girls) in Grades 3-6 of these schools. The discriminant validity study involved 46 children from these same schools, selected by class teachers who were asked to nominate three children in their class to whom the following definition would most apply and three to whom it would least apply: “Fearful or anxious
Assessment of children’s fears
491
children display excessive worry, tension or uneasiness to a present or anticipated event. It could concern such things as separation from those to whom children are attached, excessive shyness with unfamiliar people, a persistent fear of an object or a situation, or the children may be generally fearful or anxious”. Twenty-three most fearful (14 boys and 9 girls) and 23 least fearful children (14 boys and 9 girls) were identified by teachers and were selected as matches in terms of age and sex. Selection criteria for all samples were identical to those outlined above. Measures Fear Survey Schedule for
Children-Revised (FSSC-R; Ollendick, 1983). This self report questionnaire consists of 80 fear stimuli to which children are asked to report their level of fear on a 3 point scale. The standard instructions state “A number of statements which boys and girls use to describe the fears they have are given below. Read each fear carefully and place an X in the box in front of the words which best describe your fear. There are no right and wrong answers. Remember, find the word which best describes how much fear you have” (Ollendick, 1983, p. 686). One point is scored for a response of ‘none’, two points for a response of ‘some’ and 3 points for a rating of ‘a lot’. For the purposes of the present study the wording of 7 items was changed slightly so as to be more easily understood by the Australian sample (e.g. Item 21 ‘Getting a shot from the doctor’ was changed to ‘Getting an injection from the nurse or doctor’. For interest, an additional item ‘nuclear war’ was added to the FSSC-R as this item was included by King et al. (1989) and was nominated as the most common fear amongst their sample. This item was not, however, included in the statistical analyses in order to provide comparison with previous studies such as Ollendick (1983) that did not include this item. Fear Frequency and Avoidance Survey Schedule for Children (FFASSC). The adapted questionnaire contained identical items to the FSSC-R but the wording of the question was altered. Children were asked to make two responses to each fear item. The first question concerned the frequency of fear responses: ‘How often do you worry or have frightening feelings about’: . . . fear stimulus . . . ‘Never’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘Every Day’? The second question assessed the impact of the fear in terms of avoidance behaviour: ‘How much do you have to stop doing things or avoid situations because of your fear of’: . . . fear stimulus . . . ‘Not at all’, ‘A little’, ‘A lot’? Both responses were rated on a l-3 scale of increasing intensity. This wording was selected after several pilot attempts to produce a question format that was understood by children as young as Grade 3. State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC; Spielberger, 1970). The STAIC includes two self-report scales for measuring state and trait anxiety. The A-Trait scale was considered to be of particular interest in the present study as it was designed to evaluate anxiety proneness or detection of neurotic behavioural tendencies in elementary school children (Spielberger, 1970). The A-Trait scale consists of 21 items which consider how the child usually feels. Responses are scored on a l-3 point scale ranging from ‘hardly ever’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the scale have been reported to be satisfactory (Spielberger, 1970). Procedure
Children were administered the FSSC-R and the FFASSC in counterbalanced order. Assessment took place in the classroom under the instruction of the first author who read aloud the instructions. An example of a fear stimulus (sharks) which was not listed in the scale was provided in order to illustrate the method of questionnaire completion. Each item was then read aloud as the children marked their responses. In addition to collection of data for each questionnaire from the 376 children, test-retest data was obtained from 45 children (28 boys and 17 girls) from one of the six participating State schools. These pupils completed both questionnaires on two occasions, 6 weeks apart. The concurrent validity sample completed both fear questionnaires and the STAIC in counterbalanced order. RESULTS
Mean fear responses
The mean fear scores for the normative sample are shown for the FSSC-R and FFASSC by grade and sex in Table 1. Analysis of variance revealed a significant gender effect [F(1,368) = 68.99,
HELEN MCCATHIE
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and
SUSAN H. SPENCE
Table 1. Mean fear scores for boys and girls by grade and gender for each fear questionnaire
FSSC Revised Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade
5
Grade 6
Mean (n = 376)
SD
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys
168.28 117.90 139.04 124.11 142.00 128.80 134.89 120.77 135.11
24.90 26.30 29.18 24.40 28.98 25.96 19.86 23.41 28.94
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls BOYS
146.10 110.37 131.47 120.54 137.35 126.97 130.20 117.20 128.64
26.88 24.84 26.21 26.80 24.26 24.05 18.87 19.24 26.33
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys
146.64 110.32 127.45 121.20 133.01 125.02 125.02 114.05 126.46
29.66 27.10 28.08 28.31 27.16 25.81 23.21 21.04 28.49
Entire sample FFASC Frequency Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade
5
Grade 6 Entire sample FFASC Avoidance Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade
5
Grade 6 Entire sample
P < O.OOl] for the FSSC-R,
the FFASSC Frequency measure [F(1,368) = 50.39, P < O.OOl] and the FFASSC Avoidance measure [F(1,368) = 32.65, P -C O.OOl] with girls showing a higher mean fear rating compared to boys on each of these scales. A significant grade effect was also found for each questionnaire [FSSC-R, F(3,368) = 68.99, P < 0.001; FFASSC Frequency, F(3,368) = 50.39, P < 0.001; FFASSC Avoidance, F(3,368) = 32.65, P < O.OOl]. Inspection of Table 1 reveals that children in Grade 3 tended to report higher total fear scores compared to older children. However, the significant grade by gender effect for each questionnaire [FSSC-R, F(3,368) = 8.48; FFASSC Frequency, F(3,368) = 6.14; FFASSC Avoidance, F(3,368) = 6.75, P < O.OOl] suggests that this effect was predominantly found for girls, whereas boys showed minimal change in self reported fear with age. Prevalence
of fears
In keeping with the work of Ollendick (1983) the prevalence of fears was determined from the mean number of stimulus items that received the maximum rating (i.e. scores of 3) for each child. On the FSSC-R, girls rated more fears at the maximum level (X = 17.96) than boys (X = 10.27). The pattern of greater fearfulness amongst girls was also reflected in the FFASSC Frequency measure (girls X = 11.96; boys X = 6.82) and FFASSC Avoidance measure (girls X = 13.07; boys X = 7.89). The most common fears were then derived from the percentage of children who gave each stimulus the maximum rating. The 15 most common fears for girls and boys as identified by each questionnaire are shown in Tables 2-4. These items primarily concern physical danger and safety and were very similar for the FSSC-R and the Frequency and Avoidance measures of the FFASSC. Given that the patterns of most feared stimuli were extremely similar for the FSSC-R and the Frequency and Avoidance measures of the FFASSC, which was contrary to predictions, two possible explanations for the findings were examined. First it was possible that the younger children had failed to understand the meaning of the frequency of fearful thoughts and feelings and avoidance questions and had responded to the items according to the degree of fear that would be experienced if the event was to occur. In order to explore this hypothesis, the 10 most common fears were determined separately for the older children in the lo-12 yr age group who should
Assessment of children’s fears Table 2. The ten most common
499
fears (rated 3 ‘a lot’) on the FSSC-R No. of reS”OnseS
Percentage of samole
213 207 206 166 164 155 I54 147 146 I38
56.64 55.05 54.78 44.14 43.61 41.22 40.95 39.09 38.82 36.70
Boys Not being able to breathe Being hit by a car or truck Nuclear war Falling from high places Earthquakes Fire-getting burned Germs or getting a serious illness Bombing attacks or being invaded A burglar breaking into your house Guns
89 89 88 63 61 60 57 56 48 45
51.44 51.44 50.81 36.41 35.26 34.68 32.94 32.36 27.74 26.01
(C) Girls 76 Not being able to breathe 8 I Nuclear war 41 Being hit by a car or truck 26 A burglar breaking into your house 34 Fire-getting burned 58 Falling from high places 9 Death or dead people 72 Earthquakes 32 Guns 20 Bombine attacks or beine invaded
124 II0 II7 106 104 103 99 94 93 91
61.08 58.62 57.60 52.21 51.23 50.73 48.76 45.81 44.33 44.82
Item descriotion (A) Boys and Girls 76 Not being able to breathe 8 I Nuclear war 41 Being hit by a car or truck 58 Falling from high places 34 Fire-getting burned 72 Earthquakes 26 A burglar breaking into your house 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 70 Germs or getting a serious illness 9 Death or dead people (B) 76 41 8I 58 72 34 70 20 26 32
Table 3. The ten most common fears (rated 3: ‘every day’) on the FFASC-Frequency scale Item description
No. of responses
Percentage of sample
Table 4. The ten most common fears on the FFASC-Avoidance measure (rated 3, ‘a lot’) Item descrimion
No. of responses
Percentage of sample
(A) 81 76 41 26 20 34 32 72 58 9
Boys and Girls Nuclear war Not being able to breathe Being hit by a car or truck A burglar breaking into your house Bombing attacks or being invaded Fire-getting burned Guns Earthquakes Falling from high places Death or dead people
139 I38 137 127 II3 106 102 99 98 96
36.96 36.70 36.43 33.77 30.05 28. I9 27.12 26.32 26.06 25.53
iA) Bow and Girl5 kl Nuclear war 76 Not being able to breathe 26 A burglar breaking into your house 41 Being hit by a car or truck 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 9 Death or dead people 58 Falling from high places 32 GU”S 70 Germs or getting a serious illness 72 Earthquakes
147 I44 I32 124 II7 107 106 104 I04 104
39.09 38.29 35.10 32.97 31.11 28.45 28.19 27.65 27.65 27.65
(B) 41 81 76 20 34 58 38 26 72 70
Boys Being hit by a car or truck Nuclear war Not being able to breathe Bombing attacks or being invaded Fire-getting burned Falling from high places Having to eat foods you don’t like A burglar breaking into your house Earthquakes Germs or getting a serious illness
59 57 48 40 39 38 36 36 35 34
34. IO 32.94 27.74 23.12 22.52 21.76 20.80 20.80 20.23 19.65
(B) Boys 81 Nuclear war 76 Not being able to breathe 41 Being hit by a car or truck 26 A burglar breaking into your house 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 72 Earthquakes 34 Fire-getting burned 70 Germs or getting a serious illness 58 Falling from high places 38 Having to eat foods you don’t like
60 58 54 43 41 40 40 39 39 3s
34.68 33.52 31.21 24.85 23.69 23.12 23.12 22.54 22.54 20.23
(C) Girls 26 A burglar breaking into your house 76 Not being able to breathe 81 Nuclear war 41 Being hit by a car or truck 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 32 Guns 34 Fire-getting burned 9 Death or dead people 72 Earthquakes 58 Falling from high places
91 90 82 78 73 70 67 65 64 60
44.82 44.33 40.39 38.42 35.96 34.48 33.00 32.01 31.52 29.55
(C) Girls 26 A burglar breaking into your house 8 1 Nuclear war 76 Not being able to breathe 20 Bombing attacks or being invaded 9 Death or dead people 32 Guns 41 Being hit by a car or truck 58 Falling from high places 70 Germs or getting a serious illness IO Getting lost in a strange place
89 87 86 76 72 70 70 67 65 64
43.84 42.85 42.36 37.43 35.46 34.48 34.48 33.00 32.01 31.52
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HELEN MCCATHE and SUSANW. SPENCE
certainly have been capable of understanding the concept of frequency of fear thoughts and avoidance activities. The results replicated those of the total sample, indicating that the findings were unlikely to reflect the inability of the younger children to understand the instructions. Second, the possibility was considered that completion of the FFASSC after the FSSC-R may have biased the results if children tended to repeat response patterns made on the first questionnaire. In order to examine this hypothesis, the most common fears were examined for the FFASSC depending upon whether it was administered first or second in the counterbalanced order. No difference in the pattern of most common fears was found according to the order of questionnaire administration. Overall, the 15 most common fears were extremely similar for the FSSC-R, the FFASSC Frequency and Avoidance measures, the pattern being similar for boys compared to girls, older versus younger children and being independent of order of question.nai~~ administration. These fears typically concerned physical danger and safety and closely matched those reported by Ollendick (1983) and King et al. (1989). Factor analysis
Data from the 376 children were submitted to iterative principal-axis factor analysis with varimax rotation in order to produce a five-factor solution for each questionnaire. Five factors were selected given previous research {e.g. Ollendick, 1983) which suggests that five factors produces the most meaningful structure for the FSSC-R. Only those items which loaded in excess of 0.30 were included in the factor structure. Given that detailed info~ation relating to the factor structure of the FSSC-R has been reported elsewhere (Ollendick, 1983) only a brief summary is presented here. For the FSSC-R, five factors were extracted with eigenvalues in excess of 1.0, accounting for a total of 41.3% of the variance between questionnaire items. This compares with 77% of the variance accounted for by Ollendick’s (1983) five-factor solution. The first three factors resembled those reported by Ollendick (1983) and related to: (1) fear of death and danger, (2) fear of the unknown~smal~ animals and (3) fear of failure and criticism. The last two factors accounted for only 2.4 and 2.2% of the variance respectively. Although the genera1 content areas were similar for the factor structure of the FSSC-R in the present study compared of those of Ollendick (1983). the distribution of the variance across factors differed as did the exact items included in each factor. The five-factor solution for the FFASSC Frequency measure and FFASSC Avoidance measure produced factor structures that were similar to the FSSC-R. Factor t of the FFASSC Frequency scale accounted for 26.3% of the variance in item scores and concerned fears of danger, injury, illness and death whereas Factor 2 accounted for 5.1% of the variance and contained items related to fear of failure and criticism. Factor 3 accounted for only 3.6% of the variance and related to fears of unknown (e.g. going to bed in the dark, being alone, dark places). The remaining factors concerned medical fears (plus some miscellaneous items) and fears of animals. The FFASSC Avoidance scale produced a five-factor solution accounting for 40.2% of the variance. These factors mirrored those produced for the Frequency of fear measure (i.e. danger~iliness/inj~y~death~ failure and criticism; the unknowing miscellaneo~s~ animals). Of all the scales, the FFASSC Frequency measure appeared to produce the factor structure in which the factors contained items that clearly related to specific areas. Internal consistency
The internal consistency of each scale was determined for the FSSC-R [co-efficient tl (n = 375) = 0.971, FFSSC Frequency [co-efficient c( (n = 375) = 0.961 and FFSSC Avoidance [co-efficient CI(n = 375) = 0,97]. These results are in keeping with those reported by Ollendick et al. (1989) for a combined U.S. and Australian sample. Temporal stability
Pearson product moment correlation co-efiicients were dete~ined for each questionnaire between the two occasions. Temporal stability for totat fear scores over the 6 week period was found to be excellent for all measures [FSSC-R, ~(45) = 0,83; FFASSC Frequency, ~(45) = 0.80; Avoidance, r{45) = 0.793.
501
Assessment of children’s fears Table 5. Mean fear scores of the most-fearful and least-fearful FSSC-R and FFASC Most fearful group
on the
Least fearful group
Mean (n %= 23)
SD
Mean (n = 23)
SD
145.56 138.43 141.34 37.57
29.28 28.25 30.29 7.78
128.78 121.56 115.82 35.00
22.04 18.54 22.83 8.26
I
FSSC-R FFASC-F FFASC-A STAI-Trait
groups
~
I
Concurrent validity Correlations between trait anxiety on the STAI-C and the three fear measures were all significant [FSSC-R, r(127) = 0.64; FFASSC Frequency, r(127) = 0.66; Avoidance, r(127) = 0.681 suggesting moderate to high concurrent validity for each of the fear scales. Intercorrelations between fear questionnaires Strong correlations were found correlated significantly with the Avoidance [r(n,127) = 0.82, P < between the FFASSC frequency FFASSC Avoidance.
between the three versions of the fear questionnaire. The FSSC-R FFASSC frequency [r(n,127) = 0.82, P < O.OOl] and FFASSC O.OOl] measures. Similarly a significant correlation was found and FFASSC avoidance scales [r(n,127) = 0.88, P < O.OOl] and
Discriminant validity The scores for the 3 fear measures and STAI-C Trait for the teacher-nominated ‘most fearful’ children were compared with the ‘least fearful’ group. The means scores for each variable are shown in Table 5. The mean scores differed significantly for ‘most fearful’ compared to ‘least fearful’ children on the FSSC-R [F( 1,44) = 4.82, P < 0.051, FFASSC Frequency [F( 1,44) = 6.33, P < 0.051 and FFASSC Avoidance [F(1,44) = 10.41, P < 0.011 scales. Interestingly, no significance difference between most and least fearful children was found for the STAIC Trait scale, indicating that the difference between groups was specific to a fear dimension rather than generalized fear-anxiety.
DISCUSSION
This study explored the frequency of children’s fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours related to specific feared stimuli. The results demonstrated that, contrary to predictions, there was a strong similarity between children’s response to the FSSC-R and the restructed version of the questionnaire that examined frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours. It was surprising to find that children reported that their most frequent fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours related to events which were almost identical to those stimuli that were the most common fears on the FSSC-R where children are asked to “find the word which best describes how much fear you have”. These stimuli involved injury or danger (e.g. nuclear war, not being able to breath, being hit by a truck, bombing attacks, earthquakes or fire-getting burned). This finding occurred irrespective of the order of presentation of the questionnaires and the age group or sex of the children. Hence, the results are unlikely to be attributed to the inability of younger children to understand the concept of frequency of fearful thoughts or feelings. It was expected that low probability events such as being hit by a truck or earthquakes which are typically nominated by children as producing high levels of fear on the FSSC-R would not be frequently thought about nor lead to any form of avoidance behaviour. This expectation was not confirmed by the result of the present study. According to the data, children report high frequency (daily) fearful thoughts and feelings about relatively improbable dangerous situations and report having to stop activities or avoid situations because of their fear of the situation. Whilst this may be understandable for a situation such as being hit by a truck, it is difficult to image what situations could be avoided because of a fear of earthquakes This was particularly true when the study was conducted given that there had only been two minor earthquakes reported in Australia over the previous 25 yr. The Australian, Newcastle earthquake occurred 1 month after the end of the study
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HELEN MCCATHIE and SUSAN H. SPENCE
The children’s response to the FSSC-R confirmed the findings reported previously by Ollendick (1983), King et al. (1989) and Ollendick, King and Frary (1989). Girls tended to report more fears than boys, the number of fears tended to decline with age (particularly for girls) and mean values for the total fear score were similar to those of previous studies. The most common fears reported closely reflected those identified in prior studies and primarily concerned fears of injury, death or danger. The factor structure also resembled that reported previously, with the three main factors relating to danger/death, the unknown and failure/criticism. This suggests that the children in the present study were not different in some way from previously researched samples and that they were attending to the questionnaire instructions and responding appropriately. What explanations can be proposed then to account for such marked similarity in response for frequency of fearful thoughts and avoidance behaviours compared to a single rating of how much fear a child has for a particular object? One possibility is that children, even between the ages of 10 and 12, have difficulty in understanding the concepts of frequency and avoidance. The wording of the adapted questionnaire asked ‘How much do you worry about or have frightened feelings about’ . . never; sometimes; every day? and ‘How much do you have to stop doing things or avoid situations because of your fear of . . . not at all; a little; a lot? Although these question formats were selected after several pilot attempts to ensure comprehension of concepts, it is possible that children tended to respond to each stimulus item in terms of their immediate affective response to the question item. Hence, the stimulus items concerning improbable but life threatening events such as nuclear war or earthquakes may generate a negative affective response which leads children to rate the question according to this affective response, rather than the actual frequency of fearful thoughts or feelings and avoidance behaviours. If a similar effect is operating for the FSSC-R, then this would explain the marked similarity in findings for the different versions of the questionnaire and the extremely high correlations between them. The point still remains that we do not really know what the FSSC-R is measuring and it is possible that the information produced merely reflects an affective reaction to the thought of stimuli if they were to occur, rather than reflecting the child’s fearful behaviour in terms of frequency of fear thoughts or avoidance behaviours. Research is needed which examines the cognitive and avoidance behaviour aspects of fears in children. Future studies could perhaps use self monitoring as a means of examining the frequency of fearful thoughts and the fear stimuli involved. Similarly, self monitoring could be used to investigate avoidance behaviours. Psychophysiological studies may also cast light on those events that lead to greatest fear responses in terms of physiological reactions. REFERENCES King, N. J., Ollier, K., Lacuone, R., Schuster, S., Bays, K., Gullone, E. & Ollendick, T. H. (1989). The fears of children and adolescents in Australian: A cross-sectional study using the Revised-Fear Survey Schedule for Children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30, 775-784. Ollendick, T. H. (1983). Reliability and validity of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC-R). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21, 685-692. Ollendick, T. H., King, N. J. & Frary, R. B. (1989). Fears in children and adolescents: Reliability and generalizability across gender, age and nationality. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 19-27. Scherer, M. W. & Nakamura, C. Y. (1968). A Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSS-FC): A factor analytic comparison with manifest anxiety (CMAS). Behauiour Research and Therapy, 6, 173-182. Spielberger, C. D. (1970). State-Trait Anxiety Inuenfory for children. Palo Alto, Calif.: Consulting Psychological Press.
