Abstract
When asked to describe possible elicitors of fear, American children generate more stories about imaginary creatures than realistic ones; Palestinian children generate more realistic than imaginary causes (Kayyal et al., 2015). The current study reversed this task to investigate whether these patterns persist when American (n = 72) and Palestinian (n = 72) children (3–8 years, sex- and age-matched) freely labeled a story protagonist’s emotion and generated a behavioral consequence. For each story, children heard a brief description about a protagonist who encountered an imaginary (e.g., monster) or realistic (e.g., snake) fear-eliciting creature. Americans labeled the protagonist’s emotion for imaginary fear stories as scared significantly more often than for realistic ones; Palestinians labeled the protagonist’s emotion for both types as scared with equal probability. Children in both groups associated escape-related behaviors (e.g., running away) with both imaginary and realistic fear elicitors, but they associated inquisitive behaviors (e.g., going to look) exclusively with imaginary fear elicitors. Thus, culture plays a role in what children identify as scary but not in the behavioral responses they associate with different fear elicitors.
Recommended Citation
Kayyal, Mary H. and Widen, Sherri C.
(2021)
"Imaginary and Realistic Fears: Palestinian and American Children’s Understanding of Fear’s Situational Elicitors and Behavioral Consequences,"
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly: Vol. 67:
Iss.
1, Article 1.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/mpq/vol67/iss1/1