Abstract
Vicarious threat learning is an important pathway in learning about safety and danger in the environment and is therefore critical for survival. It involves learning by observing another person’s (the demonstrator) fearful responses to threat and begins as early as infancy. The review discusses the literature on vicarious threat learning and infers how this learning pathway may evolve over human development. We begin by discussing the methods currently being used to study observational threat learning in the laboratory. Next, we focus on the social factors influencing vicarious threat learning; this is followed by a review of vicarious threat learning among children and adolescents. Finally, we examine the neural mechanisms underpinning vicarious threat learning across human development. To conclude, we encourage future research directions that will help elucidate how vicarious threat learning emerges and how it relates to the development of normative fear and pathological anxiety.
Highlights
In life, children learn to differentiate threat and safety in their environment
Vicarious threat learning is based on social learning theory [3], which emphasizes how people learn from social experiences in the environment
One study found individuals from a racial in-group who held similar opinions exhibited greater differential fear responses than those from a racial in-group who did not hold similar opinions [59]. This result suggests physical similarity is influential in social fear learning; whether it increases or decreases that fear may hinge on shared alliances and feelings of ‘sameness’ between the observer and the demonstrator
Summary
Children learn to differentiate threat and safety in their environment. This paper reviews findings in observational threat learning research conducted in children and adolescents This is the first review to focus on developmental vicarious threat learning [4,7] and to emphasize recent literature in the field [8,9]. A third method uses real-time procedures, thereby enhancing the ecological validity of laboratory vicarious threat learning [21,22,23,24] This method includes parent or stranger adult learning models undergoing a direct threat learning task. Participants observe the learning model in real time, rather than in standardized pre-recorded videos Several of these studies have been conducted with infants (12 months) and toddlers (15–20 months), highlighting that even at a young age, children can learn fear and avoidance by watching their mother’s fearful facial expressions [21,22]. Studies using these different measures are reviewed
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