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Child-Parent Agreement in the Assessment of Young Children's Fears: A Comparative Perspective

Anja Riitta Lahikainen, Inger Kraav, Tiina Kirmanen and Merle Taimalu Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 2006 37: 100 DOI: 10.1177/0022022105282298 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jcc.sagepub.com/content/37/1/100

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JOURNAL et 10.1177/0022022105282298 Lahikainen OF al. CROSS-CULTURAL / YOUNG CHILDRENS PSYCHOLOGY FEARS

CHILD-PARENT AGREEMENT IN THE ASSESSMENT OF YOUNG CHILDRENS FEARS A Comparative Perspective

ANJA RIITTA LAHIKAINEN University of Tampere, INGER KRAAV University of Tartu TIINA KIRMANEN University of Tampere MERLE TAIMALU University of Tartu

Finnish and Estonian parents assessments of their 5- to 6-year-old childrens fears (selected items of the Ollendick Fear Survey Schedule) were compared with childrens self-reported fears in a semistructured interview that included a picture-aided section. Representative samples from Finland and Estonia consisted of 330 child-parent pairs. The level of agreement between the informantsassessments was low in both countries. Children reported more fears than did their parents in comparable items. Parents in both countries seem to underestimate childrens fears. These findings suggest that children should be primary informants of their fears. In addition, the same types of differences in childrens fears were revealed between the countries irrespective of the informant. Finnish children expressed more fears related to issues of mental overexcitation; the fears of Estonian children more often concerned concrete peoples behavior. Keywords: fears; children; cross-cultural; assessment

This study compares parents assessments of their childrens fears with childrens selfreports in a normal population of 5- to 6-year-old children in Finland and in Estonia. Fears are an important area through which the child constructs his or her relationship to the world. Despite the innate human capacity to experience and to express fears, fears are reinforced, repressed, socially represented, and culturally modified in social interaction (see Bowlby, 1978; Ollendick, Yang, King, Dong, & Akande, 1996; Ollendick, Yule, & Ollier, 1991). When fears occur in excess, they may turn into obstacles to growth and development (Craske, 1997). In our evaluative research project, Insecurity, Its Causes and Coping, we are interested in studying childrens fears, worries, and psychosomatic symptoms as indicators of childrens well-being (Lahikainen, Kraav, Kirmanen, & Maijala, 1995). Rather than looking at fears as symptoms, we prefer to take them as indicators of development in a broad sense. This perspective has received far too little attention in child research (Slee & Cross, 1989). Although the influence of cultural factors in creating and modifying fears is widely recognized (Ollendick et al., 1996), cultural comparative approaches have not been very common in fear research. We have not found any comparative fear study on younger children.
AUTHORS NOTE: We are grateful to the Academy of Finland and Estonian Foundation of Science for financial support for the research project. JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 37 No. 1, January 2006 100-119 DOI: 10.1177/0022022105282298 2006 Sage Publications

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Results concerning comparison of school-age children in different cultures suggest that the intensity and structure of fears tend to be similar in the Western world (King et al., 1989; Ollendick et al., 1996). However, differences have been found in the intensity and structure of fears between Chinese, Nigerian, and American/Australian school-age children (Ollendick et al., 1996), between Jewish and Bedouin school-age children (Elbedour, Shulman, & Kedem, 1997), and between Navajo and Anglo school-age children (Tikalsky & Wallace, 1988). Tentative hypotheses explaining cultural differences lie in different socialization practices: Cultures favoring inhibition, compliance, and obedience serve to increase intensity of fear (Gullone, 2000; Ollendick et al., 1996). Information about the prevalence of fears in normal populations of young children remains quite scarce for various reasons (Ablow et al., 1999; Bauer, 1976; Lapouse & Monks, 1959; Lentz, 1985a, 1985b). First, young children are not as easily accessible as schoolchildren, and second, studies with young children require special methods. The only standardized method available for studying fears in young children is based on the Fear Survey Schedule for ChildrenII (FSSC-II; Gullone & King, 1992), which has been modified for parents by Bouldin and Pratt (1998). However, the age group on which Gullone and King (1992) based their measure development is older (from age 7 to 18) than our age group. Fears are very common at an early age and therefore certainly deserve closer empirical and theoretical investigation (Elbedour et al., 1997). In our study, we used both young children themselves and their parents as informants of fear. A fear survey was designed for use with the parents, whereas a semistructured interview including a picture-aided section was developed for the children. Both instruments were designed on the basis of the fear survey schedule developed by Ollendick and colleagues (Lahikainen et al., 1995; Lahikainen, Kirmanen, Kraav, & Taimalu, 2003; Ollendick, 1983; Ollendick, King, & Frary, 1989; Ollendick, Matson, & Helsel, 1985). The study was replicated in two countries, with analyses carried out to identify similarities and dissimilarities between the informants views. Finland and Estonia are neighboring, comparatively small countries both in terms of their surface area and population numbers. The Estonian and Finnish people belong to the same group of Fenno-Ugric people, and their spoken languages are rather similar to each other. The most striking social and cultural differences between Finland and Estonia derive from the 50-year period from 1945 to 1991, when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. The children studied in Estonia have been brought up by parents who at least formally have abided by the principles of socialist ideology. Finland is a Nordic welfare state, which enjoys a high standard of living; Estonia is a postsocialist country with a liberal market economy and a lower standard of living. Estonian children in our study have lived in a very unique time of transition from the socialist regime to liberal market economy, with several complications in their socialization: parental stress caused by reorganization of everyday life, new possibilities for change in values of education, and changes in social security. In comparison to Estonia, Finland has remained stable despite the economic decline of the 1990s. We assume that the rapid social change with concomitant increase of general insecurity in Estonia is reflected in childrens fears also (Hansson, 2000; Tiit & Ainsaar, 2000). We compare the overall picture of childrens fears in these countries. In comparison, we separately refer to the data collected from parents and then from children, which are then compared. Given the indicators we have chosen to use in this project to describe well-being, we expect to find not only overlapping but also complementary pictures deriving from the children themselves and from their parents.

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We then proceed to explore differences observed between different fear items as raised by both groups of informants. There our aim then is to find out how far children and parents agree in their assessments of the presence of fears in normal populations in two cultures. The purpose of the cultural comparison is twofold: First, we demonstrate the existence of cultural variability in young childrens fears in societies of stability and instability using both children and their parents as informants. Then, we try to test whether general results concerning agreement between a child and his or her parent are applicable to one culture only or whether the phenomena studied have more general, cross-cultural validity, thus suggesting that these phenomena have general and theoretical relevance, for example, that there are general expectations attached to parenthood, psychological factors connected to observation, and inner as well as outer recognition of fears. Concerning agreement in fear reports, there are four previous studies. In a study by Bondy, Sheslow, and Garcia (1985), childrens fears were assessed by the mother and the child. Using the FSSC-II, the authors found a high correspondence in the ranking order of fears, but the correlation of overall fearfulness was insignificant among boys. Among girls, the correlation was significant but lower than the correlation of mothers estimates of their daughters fears with the mothers fears. Muris, Merckelbach, Ollendick, King, and Bogie (2001) investigated nighttime fears in children aged 4 to 12 years. Children and their parents were interviewed, for example, about the frequency and content of childrens nighttime fears. Results showed that parental reports substantially deviated from childrens reports, particularly in frequency of fears. Whereas 73.3% of the children reported nighttime fears, only 34.0% of the parents estimated that their children had such fears at all. DiBartolo, Albano, Barlow, and Heimberg (1998) examined cross-informant agreement between parent and child/adolescent with a principal diagnosis of social phobia (ADIS-C/-P). Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS-C/-P) was conducted separately for the parent and the child in clinical setting. Although there was only a minor discrepancy between the mean ratings of parents and children concerning childrens social fears, the correlation between the scales was insignificant. Barrett et al. (1991) found that fears and phobias as symptoms of depression are more often reported by children only than by their parents (47% child only, 22% parent only). All in all, the research evidence concerning the level of agreement between different informants on childrens fears remains sporadic. It also deals most often with school-aged children and excludes younger children. Questions of validity and reliability are an issue of special concern within child research (Ablow et al., 1999; Fundudis et al., 1991; Rapee, Barrett, Dadds, & Evans, 1994). Among the distinctive features attributed to child informants are their deficient linguistic, cognitive, and emotional and motivational competencies (e.g., short attention span; Breakwell, 1990; Measelle, Ablow, Cowan, & Cowan, 1998). On the other hand, it has also been argued that failure to consult children as informants is based on an underestimation of the childs competencies. The validity of information provided by parents has also been questioned (Barrett et al, 1991; Epkins & Meyers, 1994; Qvortrup, 1994). Parents tend to fare better in reporting childrens externalizing problems, whereas they underreport internalizing problems (Edelbrock, Costello, Dulcan, Conover, & Kalas, 1986; Kolko & Kadzin, 1993; Rey, Schrader, & Morris-Yates, 1992; Thompson, Merritt, Keith, Murphy, & Johndrow, 1993). This has been explained by reference to different levels of tolerance of symptoms in adults and children. The informant is likely to report symptoms that bother him or her most. Consequently, the differences between the parents and the childs reports reflect differences in their egocentric views about the severity of the symptom

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(Herjanic & Reich, 1982; Reich & Earls, 1987; Tarullo, Richardson, Radke-Yarrow, & Martinez, 1995). In several studies, children have reported more symptoms than did their parents (Bird, Gould, & Staghezza, 1992; Edelbrock et al., 1986). This difference has been attributed to the desirability effect among parents. The differences in these assessments may be due to the context dependence of the childs behavior (Begun, Gullo, & Modell, 1990) or to the informants different opportunities to observe the child (Lambert, Thesinger, Overly, & Knight, 1990). Methodological problems are also highlighted by the low level of agreement between informants in studies in which multiple informants are used (Ablow et al., 1999; Bird et al., 1992; Barrett et al., 1991; DiBartolo et al., 1998; Epkins & Meyers, 1994; Jensen et al., 1999; Loeber, Green, Lahey, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1989; Paavonen et al., 2000). Different informants tend to give different information about the same child, regardless of the informant pair selection and the topic; see, for example, parent-teacher (Keogh & Bernheimer, 1998; Lambert et al., 1990), parent-child (Hodges, Gordon, & Lennon, 1990; Jensen et al., 1999; Rey et al., 1992; Schneider & Byrne, 1989; Thompson et al., 1993), symptoms (Barrett et al., 1991; Bird et al, 1992; Fundudis et al., 1991; Jensen et al., 1999; Lambert et al., 1990), behavioral traits (Epkins & Meyers, 1994), and competencies (Keogh & Bernheimer, 1998; Schneider & Byrne, 1989). This article further addresses questions about methodological problems in childhood studies and adds on a comparative dimension. For this purpose, we have developed a detailed child interview method, which is in concurrence with studies emphasizing the importance of children as informants (Lahikainen et al., 2003). The main hypotheses are as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Young childrens fears reflect the cultural context in which they live. Hypothesis 2: Young childrens and their parents low agreement in childrens fears is independent of the culture. Hypothesis 3: Parents tend generally to underestimate the fears of their young children.

SAMPLES Two representative random samples of children ages 5 to 6 living in Kuopio and the Kuopio district in Finland (n = 240) and in Tartu and the Tartu district (n = 120) in Estonia were gathered during 1993 and 1994. The towns and their neighboring districts are situated in the geographical centers of both countries, and their relative distance from the capital is about the same. Both Kuopio and Tartu are university towns. The names and the addresses of 5- to 6-year-old citizens were randomly picked from the populations register. The final number of parents in Finland was 222 and in Estonia, 117; the number of children was 214 in Finland and 116 in Estonia. The final number of child-parent pairs was 214 in Finland and 116 in Estonia. There were 108 (50.7%) girls and 106 (49.3%) boys in the Finnish sample and 61 (53.0%) girls and 55 (47.0%) boys in the Estonian sample. The proportions of boys and girls did not differ significantly (2 = 0.30, ns). The mean ages were as follows: For Finnish children, there were 5.49 (SD = 0.50), and for Estonian children, there were 5.53 (SD = 0.50; t = 2.2, p = .03). As an example of problems of comparison, socioeconomic status could not be accounted for comparative purposes because of the differences in educational systems in the former socialist Estonia and Finland.

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TABLE 1

The Analysis of Nonresponse

Estonia Not found (moved, without phone, etc.) Refusals Lack of time Childs serious disability Excessive stress in family Childs refusal to talk 4 2 1 1 Finland 14 12 3 2 4 3

NOTE: The response rate in Finland was 91% for parents and 93% for children. The respective figures are not available for Estonia because whenever a child could not be contacted by phone or in person, a new child representing the same gender and age group was picked from the register.

NONRESPONSE

There were several reasons for nonresponse (see Table 1). The most common reasons were that the families had moved or that incorrect contact information was obtained from the register. Among the reasons quoted for refusal to participate, reference was made most frequently to lack of time, need to maintain privacy, excessive stress in family, and the childs serious disability. In addition, four children refused to speak to the interviewer.

PROCEDURES A letter was sent to inform the parents about the project. Thereafter, they were contacted by phone to make sure they were willing to take part and agreed to the child interview. Either the mother, the father, or both together were allowed to complete the questionnaire for parents. Decisions on the location and time of the interview were made on the parents recommendations. The most common choice was a quiet room at home or at the day care center but, in some cases, the parents workplace or the university. The children were interviewed in their everyday settings as follows: day care or family day care (50% Finland, 47% Estonia), home (48% Finland, 49% Estonia), and other place (2% Finland, 4% Estonia). The questionnaire was mailed to the parents, who returned it either in connection with the child interview or directly to the university. Wherever possible, the interviewer visited the child ahead of the interview to give the child a chance to get to know the interviewer. However, as it turned out, this was possible with no more than 21% of the Estonian and 18% of the Finnish children. Some children did get to meet the interviewer in advance at day care centers when other children were being interviewed. The interviewers took their time to establish contact with the child, playing and talking informally with him or her before starting the interview. Given the high level of concentration required and the importance of adapting to the childs personal rhythm, no more than two interviews were conducted a day. On average, the interviews lasted about 49 (48.97)

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minutes. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed. The parents were advised to contact the interviewer afterward if they had any concerns or questions. (For more detailed descriptions of the procedures, see Lahikainen et al., 1995, 2003.)

METHOD
PARENTS ASSESSMENTS

The parents assessed the childs fears on 25 selected items of the Ollendick Fear Survey Schedule (FSSC-R; Ollendick et al., 1989) with the following introduction: It is known that several things may cause fear in children. Do they cause fear in this child? Each fear item was to be ranked into one of the following three categories: none, to some extent, a lot. The original schedule of fears contained 79 items and concerned children of school age. It has been criticized by Bouldin and Pratt (1998), who argued it omits items that are of relevance to preschool children. We decided to exclude items that were not suitable for younger children (e.g., school-related fears; 15 items) as well as items that were deemed culturally or geographically irrelevant or strange (e.g., roller coaster/carnival rides, earthquakes; 12 items). The list of animals was also shortened (9 items), and the following items were combined: 5 items concerning medical fears were reduced to 2, 3 items describing punishments were reduced to 1 (criticism by parents, punishment by father/mother), strange and new people were combined, and the fear of elevators and closed places were combined (Lahikainen et al., 1995; Ollendick et al., 1989). In addition, parents had the opportunity to mention fears that did not appear on the list, but they rarely took advantage. Principal axis factorial analysis with varimax rotation was conducted on the whole sample (N = 339). On the basis of the eigenvalues, a six-factor solution was chosen. This was thought to provide the most sensitive description of fears in both countries, and it came closest to those factor patterns that were separately conducted in the Estonian and the Finnish sample. These factors together explained 34.8% of the total variance (see Table 2). The sample size resulted in a ratio of 13 cases to each observed variable. The factors are as follows:
1. Fear of Danger includes a burglar breaking into the house, being hit by a car or truck, closed places, getting lost in a strange place, and parental arguments. 2. Fear of Minor Injuries and Small Animals consists of fears of fire, high places, strange dogs, the sight of blood, bees, worms, or snakes. 3. Fear of the Unknown includes ghosts, nightmares, going to bed in the dark, and mystery movies. 4. Fear of Being Alone includes either being alone or being left at home with a strange sitter. 5. Fear of Failure and Criticism includes being teased, having to eat some food one does not like, meeting someone for the first time, doing something new, and being punished by parents. 6. Medical Fears include going to the dentist or doctor or having to go to hospital.

Although the factors do show similarities to the earlier factor analytical patterns of fears, there were also some differences. The self-rated fears of school-age children are usually described by a five-factor model (Gullone & King, 1992; Ollendick et al., 1989). Using a revised version of the FSSC for parents (including 94 items, 15 reworded and 14 new items), Bouldin and Pratt (1998) found three new factors in addition to the five traditional ones. In our study, having my parents argue is loaded onto Factor 1, Fear of Danger, whereas it usually loads onto the factor Fear of Failure and Criticism (Bouldin & Pratt, 1998; Gullone &

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TABLE 2

Rotated Factor Loadings for the 25 Items of the Fear Survey Schedule Presented for Parents (n = 360)
Factor Factor 1. Fear of Death and Danger Burglar breaking into house Being hit by a car or truck Closed places Getting lost in a strange place Parental arguments Death 2. Fear of Minor Injuries and Small Animals Fire High places Strange dogs The sight of blood Worms or snails etc Thunderstorms 3. Fear of the Unknown Ghosts/imaginary creatures Nightmares Darkness/going to bed in the dark Mystery movies 4. Fear of Being Alone Being alone Being left at home with a strange sitter 5. Fear of Failure and Criticism Being teased by other children Having to eat some food he or she does not like Meeting someone for the first time (meeting a strange people) Doing something new Getting punished by parents 6. Medical Fears Going to dentist/doctor Having to go to hospital Eigenvalue Variance explained Cumulative variance explained 1 2 3 4 5 6

.67 .57 .48 .44 .41 .26 .32 .02 .04 .19 .23 .14 .08 .20 .00 .18 .19 .03 .26 .02 .01 .00 .24 .03 .26 2.0 7.87 7.87

.12 .34 .17 .18 .00 .26 .57 .55 .54 .43 .41 .30 .06 .13 .06 .07 .09 .13 .03 .04 .22 .25 .06 .03 .25 1.9 7.46 15.32

.21 .05 .20 .15 .13 .25 .06 .05 .04 .15 .15 .22 .67 .59 .58 .41 .19 .08 .19 .08 .08 .07 .09 .06 .10 1.7 6.48 22.16

.12 .04 .22 .27 .12 .12 .10 .05 .04 .01 .11 .16 .11 .05 .22 .02 .67 .45 .12 .21 .16 .03 .21 .02 .14 1.1 4.33 26.49

.01 .02 .08 .15 .36 .06 .01 .06 .14 .05 .08 .02 .08 .24 .06 .08 .00 .25 .47 .46 .36 .30 .24 .08 .13 1.1 4.26 30.75

.00 .08 .04 .05 .10 .15 .01 .04 .07 .15 .06 .12 .04 .08 .08 .00 .05 .06 .07 .00 .11 .25 .01 .78 .47 1.0 4.04 34.79

King, 1992; Ollendick et al., 1989). Furthermore, the items under Fear of the Unknown are spread across two separate factors, one related to excitement and imagination and the other to being alone. The reliability (Cronbachs alpha) for the total scale in the current sample of parents was 0.88 (0.91 for Finland and 0.79 for Estonia). Furthermore, Cronbachs alphas for the six factors were as follows: Fear of Danger (0.72), Fear of Minor Injuries and Small Animals (0.68), Fear of the Unknown (0.69), Fear of Being Alone (0.54), Fear of Failure and Criticism (0.53), and Medical Fears (0.54).

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CHILDRENS ASSESSMENTS

Child interview. The children were interviewed by students or postgraduate students in both Finland (n = 7) and Estonia (n = 4). Special training was provided ahead of the interviews by the same trainees in both countries. The majority of the interviewers were pedagogues or social science students. We have described the recruitment and training processes in closer detail elsewhere (see Lahikainen et al., 1995, 2003). The semistructured interview consisted of three parts. First, the childs network of significant persons was asked. Then, the interviewer talked with the child about his or her fears. This discussion was started as follows: All people, even adults, are sometimes afraid of something, although they may be afraid of different things than children. I would now like to know, what kinds of things are you afraid of? The children were allowed to speak about their fears for as long as they had something to say about the subject (for more details, see Lahikainen et al., 2003). Then, in the picture-aided part, eight pictures were shown with a short story about a girl or a boy appearing in the picture (depending on the interviewees gender). After each story, the child was asked, How does Lisa/Lars feel? Is she/he afraid? How afraid is she/he, and what does she/he do afterwards? The pictures represented fearful situations, each of them having a counterpart in Ollendicks (1983) list of fears and representing different dimensions of childrens fears (Fear of Failure and Criticism: other children are teasing, parents are arguing, parents are criticizing the child; Fear of the Unknown: going to bed alone in the dark, parents are going on a trip; Fear of Danger and Death: getting lost in the forest and getting lost surrounded by strange people; Medical Fears: going to the doctor). The pictures were as simple as possible, focusing only on the object necessary to concretize the topic concerned (see also Lahikainen et al., 2003). To measure the intensity of fears both in the semistructured interviews and in the pictureaided part, we used the technique developed by Carpenter (1990) for assessing experiences of fear and pain in children (Childrens Global Rating Scale). When the child was speaking about a particular fear, the interviewer showed the child a picture with three different lines: The upper line with sharp curves (black) designated great, the middle line with moderate curves (red) designated average, and the lower line with mild curves (green) designated minimal fear. The child showed how afraid he or she was in the case of each fear. The technique proved to be well suited to its purpose; the children promptly understood what was expected of them, and they willingly used the chart. Separate factor analyses were carried out on the fears expressed by the children in the semistructured interview and in the picture-aided interview. First, the fears expressed by the children in the semistructured part were classified into 19 categories (Kirmanen, 2000; Lahikainen et al., 2003). Six categories were excluded from the factor analysis because less than 10% of the children had mentioned fears from these categories. This allowed us to avoid logical correlations between variables. The fear categories that were omitted were fear of thunderstorms and so forth; fear of war, attacks, guns, and so forth; fear of traffic accidents; fear of new things and situations; fear of going to sleep; and fear of medical events. The final factor analysis was composed of 13 of the most common fears that the children had mentioned (see Table 3). The principal axis method and varimax rotation were used on a total sample of 330 children and separately for subsamples of Estonian and Finnish children. The five-factor model for the total sample was accepted on the basis of the eigenvalues. The model explained 31.2% of the variance. The sample size resulted in a ratio of 25 cases to each observed variable. Cronbachs alphas for five factors (based on semistructured interview) were as follows: Fear of Loss and Death (0.44), Fear of Nightmares and Television (0.52),

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TABLE 3

Rotated Factor Loadings for the 13 Items of Self-Reported Fears of Children in Semistructured Interview (n = 360)
Factor 1. Fear of Loss and Death Fear of loss or rejection of a significant person and the other fears of separation Fear of big accidents and death Fear of imaginary creatures Fears connected with strange adults Fears of small accidents and danger situations 2. Fear of Nightmares and Television Programs Fear of nightmares Fear of television programs 3. Fear of Animals Fear of imaginary and unfamiliar animals Fear of familiar animals 4. Fear of Behavior of Significant Adults or Peers Fears connected with significant adults Fears connected with peers 5. Fear of Being Alone and Being Lost Fear of being alone and being lost Fear of darkness Eigenvalue Variance explained Cumulative variance explained 1 2 3 4 5

.56 .51 .35 .25 .18 .11 .20 .01 .11 .10 .06 .30 .01 1.0 7.45 7.45

.06 .08 .10 .03 .02 .77 .51 .10 .09 .01 .20 .01 .10 .9 7.21 14.66

.08 .03 .15 .05 .15 .18 .13 .76 .24 .03 .11 .03 .03 .8 5.77 20.43

.14 .06 .02 .17 .16 .11 .01 .05 .12 .73 .30 .03 .01 .7 5.64 26.07

.28 .04 .05 .07 .12 .11 .07 .08 .07 .03 .01 .56 .46 .7 5.09 31.16

Fear of Animals (0.31), Fear of Behavior of Significant Adults and Peers (0.37), and Fear of Being Alone and Lost (0.40).
1. Fear of Loss and Death consists of fear of loss or rejection of a significant person, fear of serious accidents and death, and fear of imaginary creatures. 2. Fear of Nightmares and Television. 3. Fear of Animals consists of fear of familiar or wild animals. 4. Fear of Behavior of Significant Adults or Peers. 5. Fear of Being Alone and Being Lost.

The principal axis factor analysis (with varimax rotation) of eight items in the pictureaided interview yielded two factors (see Table 4). These two factors explained 27.12% of the total variance. The sample size resulted in a ratio of 25 cases to each observed variable. Cronbachs alphas were 0.59 (Fear of Separation) and 0.56 (Fear of Criticism and Aggressive Behavior).
1. Fear of Separation (unknown) includes fears of the following: getting lost in the forest, getting lost in a big crowd, going to the doctor, and parents leaving on a trip. 2. Fear of Criticism and Aggressive Behavior consists of fear of being teased, fear of being criticized by parents, and having parents argue.

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TABLE 4

Rotated Factor Loadings for the Eight Items of the Picture-Aided Fears of Children (n = 360)
Factor 1. Fear of Separation Parents are leaving for a trip Going to doctor Getting lost in the forest Getting lost in a big crowd Going to sleep alone 2. Fears of Criticism and Aggressive Behavior Being teased Having parents argue Parents are criticizing Eigenvalue Variance explained Cumulative variance explained 1 2

.53 .50 .45 .41 .36 .12 .18 .32 1.2 14.80 14.80

.24 .21 .08 .16 .09 .68 .51 .35 1.0 12.32 27.12

RESULTS
COMPARISON OF FEARS IN ESTONIAN AND IN FINNISH CHILDREN

To get an overall picture of childrens fears in both groups of informants, we counted the means of the factor score variables separately for the Estonian and Finnish samples; t test for two-tailed significance was used (see Table 5). According to the parents, the most evident differences between the two cultures were as follows: Estonian children were more often than Finnish children afraid of being alone, whereas children in Finland were more afraid of the unknown than were children in Estonia. Significant differences were found in the fear of injuries and animals in favor of Estonian children and in the fear of danger in favor of Finnish children. No differences emerged between the children from the two countries in terms of their fears of failure and criticism or in their fear of seeing the doctor. The Estonian children said more often that they were afraid of loss and death and of animals. Children in Finland, on the other hand, disclosed more fears of television programs and nightmares. Furthermore, the picture-aided interview revealed greater fear of criticism and of aggressive behavior in Estonia than in Finland. No significant differences were found between the two countries in fears of others behavior, fear of darkness and fear of getting lost (in the semistructured interview), or the fear of separation (in the picture-aided part). The picture of fears emerging from the parentsand their childrens responses is very similar in both cultures, although interpretation of the results is not quite straightforward on account of the somewhat differing factor contents (Fear of Animals, Fear of the Unknown/ Fear of Nightmares and of Television, and Fear of Being Alone/Fear of Loss and Death). However, it is noteworthy that cultural differences in the fear of aggressive behavior by significant others are seen only in the childrens responses and only when the stimuli are presented in iconic form.

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TABLE 5

Means of Fear Factor Scores in Finnish and in Estonian Children Based on Parent Survey and Child Interview
Finland Parents as informants Fear factors Danger Injuries and Animals Unknown Being Alone Failure and Criticism Fear of Doctor Children as informants Fear factors (semistructured) Loss and Death Television and Nightmares Animals Behavior of Others Darkness and Getting Lost Fear factors (picture aided) Separation (unknown) Criticism/Aggressive Behavior Estonia t Value (sign.)

.07 .10 .12 .16 .02 .04

.14 .19 .22 .30 .03 .07

.02 .00 .00 .00 ns ns

.15 .37 .18 .03 .04

.28 .69 .34 .05 .07

.00 .00 .00 ns ns

.03 .12

.05 .23

ns .00

DISTRIBUTION OF FEARS ACCORDING TO PARENTS AND THE CHILDREN

We move on now to discuss the distribution and intensity of fears in both cultures. The frequency distributions of different fears as assessed by the child and by the parents on the respective items are shown in Table 6. In both countries, children reported more frequent and more intensive fears than did their parents on all dimensions; the single exception to this rule was the assessment by Finnish parents of the fear of teasing.
AGREEMENT BETWEEN PARENTS AND CHILDREN IN ESTONIA AND IN FINLAND

Correlations between factor variables were counted to establish the level of agreement between the childrens and parents assessments. Furthermore, kappa coefficients and conditional probabilities were counted for comparable items of fear in the child interview and in the parent survey. Before these contingency analyses, the scales of the variables were dichotomized, with one category composed of cases in which fear is absent and the other cases in which fear is present. Significant correlations were found between parents assessments and self-reported fears as follows: Fear of the Unknown (parents assessment) showed a positive correlation with Fear of Nightmares and Television (childs report; .19**) and with fear of darkness and being lost (childs report; .12*). Fear of Injuries and Animals (parents assessment) correlated with Fear of Animals (Childs report; .18*). Fear of Being Alone (parents assessment) correlated negatively with Fear of Nightmares and Television (childs assessment; .24**). The same significant correlations were also found separately in each country.

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TABLE 6

The Frequency Distributions of the Childrens Fears in Finland and in Estonia (Assessed by the Parents and Children in Picture-Aided Interview)
Fears Object of the Fear Finland Going to bed alone in the dark C P Teasing by other children C P Parental arguments C P Parental criticism/punishment C P Going to the doctor C P Getting lost in the forest C Getting lost surrounded by strange people C P Parents are leaving for a trip C P Estonia Going to bed alone in the dark C P Teasing by other children C P Parental arguments C P Parental criticism/punishment C P Going to the doctor C P Getting lost in the forest C Getting lost surrounded by strange people C P Parents are leaving for a trip C P None/Little Some Extent A Lot

12 37 66 27 62 40 38 44 37 51 14 31 15 41 74

33 47 25 70 23 50 29 55 32 44 23 42 59 25 24

55 16 9 3 15 10 33 1 32 5 64 27 27 35 2

24 37 48 51 52 61 26 22 33 49 13 20 17 21 60

30 44 39 47 30 31 43 70 41 41 35 46 58 35 28

46 19 14 3 18 9 32 9 26 10 52 34 26 44 13

NOTE: C = children; P = parents; ns = 116 in Estonia, 214 in Finland.

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TABLE 7

The Ranking Order of the Fears Unrecognized by the Parents, Reported by the Child (in percentagesa)
Finland Fears present in picture-aided interview of the child Staying without parents Going to the doctor Parents are punishing Going to sleep alone in the dark Parental arguments Other children are teasing Getting lost surrounded by Strange people getting lost in the forest Fears present in the semistructured interview of the child Strange people Nightmares Being alone Mystery movies Mystery creatures Estonia

75 52 41 36 34 26 30 14

59 47 18 37 58 49 14 14

65 35 22 22 20

56 25 34 50 37

a. Percentages of cases where parental recognition of fear is absent when the childs report is positive.

In Table 7, selected fear items are rank ordered according to the percentages of parents who omit to mention or who do not recognize their childs fear (parental recognition is absent when the childs self-report is positive). More than one third of the parents overlooked their childrens fears on between 7 to 13 items in Finland and on 9 in Estonia. The most prominent feature is the general omission of most fears by parents. The one exception to this tendency is observed for the fear of getting lost. Fear of being left alone without parents and fear of the doctor, fear of parental punishment (in Finland), and fear of parental arguments (in Estonia) are the fears that are hardest for parents to recognize. Estonian parents tend to overlook more often than Finnish parents their childrens fear of mystery movies, parental arguments, and being teased by other children. Typical fears that are overlooked by Finnish parents are the fear of being left alone without parents and parental punishment. Kappa values indicating the consistency of the parents and childrens ratings in Finland and in Estonia were low across all the fear items. The childs gender and age and the parents educational status showed only minor effects on the level of agreement in this sample. Only three significant kappa values were found in the groups of children age 5 and 6 for the girls and the boys and for all of them in the group of 6-year-old girls (see Table 8). Conditional probabilities for parents can be interpreted as indicators of parental recognition of the fear, the childs conditional probability, and that childs ability to use the method chosen. The analysis of conditional probabilities shows, then, that parents and children are selective in producing answers concerning fears in different ways. The results from the two different groups of informants are differently biased. Some fears are easy for both to express, such as the fear of getting lost. On the other hand, it seems to be particularly difficult for parents to recognize such fears in which they are themselves directly or indirectly involved (e.g., the fear of going to bed at night, being alone, or being left alone without ones parents).

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TABLE 8

Conditional Agreement and Kappa Coefficients on Parent-Child Ratings of Fears by Gender and Age of the Child
Conditional Agreement and 6-Year-Old Girl P/C 70.4 65.7 69.5 65.4 87.7 92.1 56.6 31.4 44.4 71.4 68.2 100.0 69.9 C/P 35.2 48.9 75.9 96.2 95.9 78.4 66.7 59.3 30.8 33.3 52.6 16.1 53.3 .08 .17 .20 .17* .07 .23* .09 .03 .15 .04 .01 .12* .02 P/C 68.6 52.6 71.4 54.3 90.8 91.7 44.8 32.1 46.2 80.0 61.1 40.0 61.4 C/P 43.6 45.5 77.6 82.6 90.8 72.4 66.7 70.8 28.6 30.2 44.0 3.8 52.9 P/C 61.8 75.0 72.9 69.1 84.1 81.5 53.1 34.0 22.2 68.2 72.2 60.0 75.6 C/P 42.0 50.0 67.3 71.7 81.5 67.7 66.7 68.0 7.4 27.8 49.1 13.0 56.4 .04 .02 .03 .04 .03 .05 .04 .05 .20 .12 .00 .05 .02 Boy Girl .12 .23 .10 .06 .09 .16 .01 .01 .09 .03 .03 .00 .03 P/C 60.0 45.8 50.0 67.7 77.4 76.9 44.4 26.7 33.3 68.2 53.6 85.7 77.1 Coefficients 5-Year-Old Boy C/P 40.9 37.9 51.4 87.5 80.4 78.4 64.5 63.2 12.5 32.6 38.5 12.5 52.9 .05 .04 .03 .09 .18 .16 .05 .01 .00 .05 .00 .06 .04

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Fear Teasing by other children Parental arguments Parental punishment Going to bed in the dark Getting lost in the forest Getting lost surrounded by strange people Going to the doctor Staying alone without parents Strange people Mystery creatures Nightmares Being alone Mystery movies

NOTE: C = children; P = parents; C/P = percentage of cases in which parental assessment is positive when the childs assessment is positive; P/C = percentage of cases in which a childs assessment is positive when parental assessment is positive. *Approximate significance < .05.

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Furthermore, the cultural context comes into play. It seems that it is easier for children to report their fears in a picture-aided interview, particularly so when highly emotional topics are involved (e.g., fear of being left alone without parents, fear of going to bed alone). Fears that were found to be particularly difficult for a child to communicate without iconic representation were the fear of being alone and the fear of nightmares (in Estonia). The former fear is cognitively very demanding as well.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

FEARS ARE CULTURALLY FRAMED AND MODIFIED

The cross-cultural setting of our study provides a useful vantage point for exploring both cultural variation and consistency in the assessments of fear. Our results strongly suggest that cultural and social contexts influence the content of fears even in preschool children. This happens through everyday interaction with the socialization agents at home and in day care as well as outside these relationships, for example, through media. Finnish children more often expressed fear related to mental overexcitation (television and nightmares), whereas the fears of Estonian children more often concerned concrete people and their behavior (loss, rejection, aggressive behavior, and animals, including rare animals). In research of different educational styles, the Estonian parents have turned out to be more authoritarian in their educational practices, emphasizing punishment more than did the Finnish parents (Hmlinen, Kraav, & Raudik, 1994). Also, compliance is higher in parental hierarchy of educational values in Estonia than in Finland, whereas the Finnish parents appreciate more self-realization and liberty (Hmlinen et al., 1994). The Estonian young children may also respond to parental stress and their lack of time with fears of loss, rejection, and aggressive behavior and of criticism by the adults. The higher prevalence of television-related fears among Finnish children may reflect the higher television program exposure, especially of international news as well as action and horror programs in Finland; in Estonia, programs are more national (Lahikainen et al., 2004). Our results are consistent with earlier comparative studies on fears (Elbedour et al., 1997; Ollendick et al., 1996; Tikalsky & Wallace, 1988) and emphasize cultural differences in fears, which originate from different styles of socialization and cultural emic features. As Gullone (2000) pointed out, more cross-cultural analysis and research are required (measures developed within culture) as opposed to the imposed-etic approach that has been used. There are numerous possible sources of variation in the occurrence of fears between different cultures. Assessments vary across cultures depending on the specific cultural meaning of the object of fear. Children may adopt cultural norms of expressing emotions at an early age. These norms must be taken into account, most particularly in the context of semistructured interviews in which children may want to avoid certain topics. As far as parents are concerned, cultural norms of good parenting may impede and bias parental evaluation of their children. For instance, they may feel uncertain of their real or imagined omissions of care or educational styles; consequently, parents own fears of criticism interfere with their evaluation of their childs fears. Therefore, they may be inclined systematically to hide certain fears or/and to emphasize others.

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PARENTS AND CHILDREN AS INFORMANTS OF THE CHILDS FEARS

An important finding of our study is that significant correlations were found between parentsfear-assessment factors and childrens fear factors. It was also possible to draw a similar profile with regard to the differences and similarities between the fears of Estonian and Finnish children separately on the basis of the parents and the childrens answers. In a cultural comparison, both groups of informants validated each others responses significantly. However, there was a low level of agreement between parents and their young children regarding the occurrence and intensity of specific fear items. The same observation has been made in many child psychiatric studies (Barrett et al., 1991; Bird et al., 1992). The result applies to both countries in our study. The childs age and gender had only a minor impact. We could not confirm that parents were better in evaluating their daughters than their sons fears, as has been reported in some earlier studies. It is noteworthy that the main differences between parents fear assessments and childrens self-report are similar in both countries. Children indicate more frequent and more intense fears on the items of the picture-aided interview in both cultures than is reported by their parents. The same finding has been made earlier in studies concerning childrens symptoms (Begun et al., 1990; Bird et al., 1992; Edelbrock et al., 1986; Lambert et al., 1990). How do we explain the discrepancies observed between the views of the two groups of informants? The difference has been attributed to the desirability effect among parents (Bird et al., 1992; Edelbrock et al., 1986). The reason why informants have different assessments may also have to do with the context dependence of the childs behavior (Begun et al., 1990) or to the informants different opportunities to observe the child (Lambert et al., 1990). It is possible that parents underestimate fears not only because of the desirability effect but also because it is difficult for them to recognize fears, for instance, when they are themselves involved in a fear-inducing situation (e.g., parental arguments, parental criticism, or fear of death of a significant person). It is also worth noting that there were some fears that were only found in the semistructured child interview. These fears are not covered in the fear schedules. In particular, children very often reported fears related to television programs. This was the most common type of fear of all according to the children in the Finnish sample; in the Estonian sample, this kind of fear was the second most common (Lahikainen et al., 2003). Childrens responses to the question What are you afraid of? also provide new insights into the ways that children construct fears. For example, the category Fear of Behavior of Significant Others included different kinds of descriptions of harmful and dissatisfying behavior of others and pain caused by others. It is noteworthy that children at the age of 5 to 6 are not afraid only of criticism or punishment but of the larger scale of actions of others that hurt them. Our findings can be summarized as follows: Childrens fears reflect their personal experience in their society and culture. However, there is something universal in being a child across cultures. Independently of the informant, the main cultural differences in childrens fears were evidenced. This is an important finding, suggesting that the semistructured child interview has validity as an indicator of fear in comparative studies. The study confirms earlier findings regarding the low level of agreement between child and parent assessments, indicating that both parents and young children themselves are important informants. Our data also confirm that young children report more symptoms than do parents. The novelty in our case is that these phenomena are here demonstrated in two different cultures, suggesting that they are not dependent on cultural context.

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Our comparison of informants in two cultures also revealed that even young children are partly unique as informants of their fears, suggesting that they should indeed be used as informants.
METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS: IMPROVEMENTS AND LIMITATIONS

Our cross-cultural comparison involved some minor methodological limitations that need to be addressed here. The sample sizes varied considerably for reasons that had to do with the resources available in the respective countries. The Estonian sample was kept to a bare minimum for purposes of statistical comparison between the two countries. A larger sample size would have given greater control over the background factors. Furthermore, the factor-analytical score variables used in the comparison were based on factor analyses from the whole sample consisting of subsamples of different sizes. This means that the variation in the bigger sample has a greater impact on the factor loadings. This was not, however, a problem in the comparisons because the factor pattern outcomes of the analyses of the country samples were very similar. Our factor analysis of the fear survey for parents was composed of 25 selected items of the FSSC-R and produced the same type of factor structure as in earlier studies (Bouldin & Pratt, 1998; Ollendick et al., 1989). It seems then that the reduction of the initial items was successful enough and that the most prevalent fears were depicted. The variance of factor patterns explained was not very high but remained at the same level as is ordinarily the case in fear studies using FSSC (e.g., see Bouldin & Pratt, 1998). The differences found in the factor patterns in this study reveal some interesting discrepancies with earlier studies, which may reflect the age effect on the construction of fears. Parental arguing is more threatening to younger children and is therefore associated with the fear of danger, whereas among older children it is more closely associated with the threatening behavior of adults. Fear of the Unknown was divided into two categories: Fears were either associated with excitement or with concrete threats of being left alone without parents. The factor analyses of the fears depicted in the semistructured child interview yielded a five-factor pattern that deviates interestingly from adult-based fear factors. The fear of losing significant others is more central to the childrens factor pattern than it is to the factor pattern based on adult evaluations. In defining the basic categories for childrens self-reported fears, we have preferred to use categories that came as close as possible to the childs own constructs rather than using any set categories (Kirmanen, 2000; Lahikainen et al., 1995, 2003). The results concerning young childrens fears are thus highly dependent on the indicators of fear chosen. Although it is possible to develop fear schedules for parents on the basis of the results obtained from child interviews as in this study, there do still remain some problems. A complete, representative list of fears is hardly conceivable. For example, Estonian children were able to mention 17 types of familiar and 30 types of unfamiliar animals, whereas Finnish children identified 27 types of familiar and 41 types of unfamiliar animals in semistructured interviews. Television-related fears also concerned different kinds of programs: documentaries, news, entertainment for parents, and childrens programs (Lahikainen et al., 1995). In other words, regardless of the instruments chosen, the measurement of general fearfulness will in all probability be more or less biased. It is important to discuss, therefore, what kinds of fears are most relevant to children and how they should be measured. The fear measures used in this study have their advantages and their drawbacks. Fear lists for parents and picture-aided interviews for children are comparable methods for purposes

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of making the fears inquired equally salient to the informants, but the associations arising in connection with a word or a picture may obviously differ. In many cases, it is also difficult to find an exact pictorial presentation for the phenomenon concerned: In addition to concretizing, the picture also narrows down. We chose our methods of data collection on the basis of what we thought would be the most effective strategy both for the parents and for the children, given the limited financial and time resources available and the requirements of having as similar measures as possible. The most effective measures in the case of children are not necessarily the most effective measures for parents and vice versa. However, our combination of several different methods did at least allow us to demonstrate the cultural variability of fears. We also believe we have been able to offer some guidelines for the improvement of both fear survey schedules and child interviews. Children can provide indispensable information about their experiences, which serves as a critical mirror of the adult-centric view on childhood.

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Anja Riitta Lahikainen has been a professor of social psychology since 1998 in the Department of Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Tampere in Finland, where she directs the Research Unit of Childhood and Family Studies. She earned her doctorate in social science in social psychology at the University of Helsinki in 1984. She has been a lecturer in social psychology from 1976 to 1989 at the University of Helsinki and a professor in social psychology at the University of Kuopio from 1989 to 1997. Her research interests concern comparative childhood research, childrens well-being, and family and day care as contexts of development and upbringing. Her current research project concerns childrens well-being and media in a cultural and societal context. Inger Kraav received her Ph.D. in pedagogy at Tartu University in Estonia in 1984. Since then, she has worked as a docent in education in the Department of Pedagogy at Tartu University. Her research interests include family, education, and childrens well-being and security. Tiina Kirmanen received her doctorate in social science in social psychology at the University of Kuopio in Finland in 2000. She is interested in childrens fears and well-being as well as the development of communal welfare policies. Merle Taimalu earned a licentiate in education in 1999 and is completing her Ph.D. in the Department of General Education at the University of Tartu. Her research interests concern childrens well-being and early education.

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