Age Differences in Fright Responses

A large body of research has examined developmental differences in media-induced fears and how to cope with them. Cantor and her associates have conducted a series of experiments and surveys to test expectations based on theories and findings in cognitive development research. Cantor summarized many of these findings in a 1994 review article and in a 1998 book for parents. The experiments in this research program involved the showing of relatively mild, short clips of television programs and movies to children of different ages to test rigorously controlled variations in program content and viewing conditions. After viewing, children have reported on their feelings and interpretations, and these self-report measures have often been supplemented with physiological measures, such as the videotaping and systematic coding of facial expressions of emotion and/or behavioral measures of approach and avoidance. In contrast, the surveys have investigated the responses of children who were exposed to a particular mass media offering in their natural environment, without any researcher intervention. Although less tightly controlled, the surveys have permitted the study of responses to much more intensely frightening media fare, and have looked at responses occurring under more natural conditions.

It might seem likely that children would become less and less susceptible to all media-produced emotional disturbances as they grew older. However, this is not the case. As children mature cognitively, some things become less likely to disturb them, whereas other things become potentially more upsetting. As a first generalization, the relative importance of the immediately perceptible components of a fear-inducing media stimulus decreases as the age of a child increases. Research findings support the generalization that preschool children (approximately three to five years of age) are more likely to be frightened by something that looks scary but is actually harmless than by something that looks attractive but is actually harmful; for older elementary school children (approximately nine to eleven years of age), appearance carries much less weight, relative to the behavior or destructive potential of a character, animal, or object.

One study that supported this generalization was based on a survey that asked parents to name the programs and films that had frightened their children the most. In this survey, parents of pre-school children most often mentioned offerings with grotesque-looking, unreal characters, such as the television series The Incredible Hulk and the feature film The Wizard of Oz ; parents of older elementary school children more often mentioned programs or movies (such as The Amityville Horror ) that involved threats without a strong visual component, and that required a good deal of imagination to comprehend. Another study found similar results using the self-reports of children rather than the observations of parents. Both surveys included controls for possible differences in exposure patterns in the different age groups.

The results from a laboratory study that involved an episode of The Incredible Hulk supported the generalization that resulted from the surveys. In the survey that asked parents about what programs frightened their children the most, this program had spontaneously been mentioned by 40 percent of the parents of preschoolers. The laboratory study concluded that the unexpectedly intense reactions of preschool children to this program were partially due to their overresponse to the visual image of the Hulk character. When participants were shown a shortened episode of the program and were asked how they had felt during different scenes, preschool children reported the most fear after the attractive, mild-mannered hero was transformed into the monstrous-looking Hulk. Older elementary school children, in contrast, reported the least fear at this time, because they understood that the Hulk was really the benevolent hero in another physical form, and that he was using his superhuman powers to rescue a character who was in danger.

Another experiment tested the effect of appearance more directly, by creating a story in four versions, so that a major character was either attractive and grandmother-looking or ugly and grotesque. The behavior of the character was also varied—she was depicted as either kind or cruel— creating four versions of the same story. In other words, the main character was either attractive and kind, attractive and cruel, ugly and kind, or ugly and cruel, while all other aspects of the story were held constant. In judging how nice or mean the character was and in predicting what she would do in the subsequent scene, preschool children were more influenced than older children (six to ten years of age) by the looks of the character. The preschool children were less influenced than the older children by her kind or cruel behavior. As the age of the child increased, the looks of the character became less important and her behavior carried increasing weight.

A second generalization from research in this area is that as children mature, they become more responsive to realistic dangers and less responsive to fantastic dangers depicted in the media. The survey of parents mentioned earlier supported this trend. In general, the tendency of parents to mention fantasy offerings (depicting events that could not possibly occur in the real world) as sources of fear decreased as the age of the child increased, and the tendency to mention fictional offerings (depicting events that could possibly occur) increased. Further support for this generalization comes from a survey of the fright responses of children to television news. A random survey of parents of children in kindergarten through sixth grade showed that fear produced by fantasy programs decreased as the grade of the child increased, while fear induced by news stories increased with age.

A third generalization from research is that as children mature, they become frightened by media depictions involving increasingly abstract concepts. Data supporting this generalization come from a survey of children’s responses to the made-for-television movie The Day After . Although many people were concerned about the reactions of young children to this movie, which depicted the devastation of a Kansas community by a nuclear attack, the survey showed that the emotional effect of this movie increased as the age of the viewer increased. Similarly, a survey of the reactions of children to television coverage of the Persian Gulf War showed that preschool and elementary school children were more likely to be frightened by the concrete, visual aspects of the coverage (such as the missiles exploding), whereas teenagers were more disturbed by the abstract components of the story (such as the possibility of the conflict spreading).