Dread heads

Reports on a study done by a group of Canadian Psychologists that finds that teenagers have at least as many fears as toddlers. Study; Details; Results.

By PT Staff, published on January 01, 1992

Adolescence

If it's goblins at six, it's global warming at 16. Kids don't outgrow their fear--they just replace old ones with new ones.

A group of Canadian psychologists reports that teenagers have at least as many fears as toddlers. As children grow up, the dread of monsters or kidnappers becomes fear of environmental assaults, AIDS, war, or not getting a good job--all worries realistically tied to their growing maturity.

Their study of over 400 Montreal high school students contradicts the popular wisdom that the capacity for fear lessens with age. It even contradicts an earlier finding, made in 1978 by one of the team members, Jeffrey L. Derevensky, Ph.D., that older children have fewer fears than younger ones. "Typically, adolescents expressed fears regarding the environment, their future, their sexuality, the politics affecting peace, and drug abuse," the group reported at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.

It may be because there's more to worry about today, or at least more exposure to worrisome things through TV. And girls worry more than boys, perhaps because girls are known to watch more TV. Girls may also be more fearful because they are taught helplessness and are less inhibited about admitting to fears.

Surprisingly, peer fears abate as teens age, say the researchers. More than a third of all seventh-graders worry considerably about what their peers think about them, but only one in seven 11th-graders lists peer pressure as a major concern. But girls, especially those in their early teens, worry twice as much as boys about how they appear to their peers.

Adolescents are not only great worriers, their worries are, indeed, highly realistic. Mostly they worry about impending cataclysms---although one youngster's cataclysm was simply a vanishing supply of Pez candies.

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