Keywords
Development of fears
Psychological vulnerability
Negative experiences
Logistic regression.
How to Cite
Abstract
The research aimed at finding some deciding factors in Chilean children’s fears. For carrying out this study, a survey was administered to children between 6 and 11 years old through personal interviews, under their teachers’ supervision and parents’ permission. The measuring instrument was based on the questionnaire adaptation “Fear Survey for Children; revised, FSSCR”. The sample consisted of 729 children of both genders and from different socioeconomic strata and areas (urban and rural). For its examination, a Factorial Analysis of Main Components was applied, resulting that fears can be grouped into five factors: Daily life, Supernatural facts, Health, Natural disasters and Self-esteem. Thanks to this, a weighted index of fears was built. Through a Logistic Regression Model, some possible deciding factors in children’s fears were analysed. For example, it was found that living in the city or in the country is not a significant factor when determining children’s fears. On the other hand, the factors that turned out to be significant are: the gender, finding terrifying images on the internet, the socioeconomic level that each child belongs to and, being able to manage on his or her own when the child confronts a frightening event.This journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights. Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.