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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
Threat-detection in child development: an evolutionary perspective
Pascal Boyer1, Brian Bergstrom
1Departments of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, United States. pboyer@wustl.edu
Abstract:
Evidence for developmental aspects of fear-targets and anxiety suggests a complex but stable pattern whereby specific kinds of fears emerge at different periods of development. This developmental schedule seems appropriate to dangers encountered repeatedly during human evolution. Also consistent with evolutionary perspective, the threat-detection systems are domain-specific, comprising different kinds of cues to do with predation, intraspecific violence, contamination-contagion and status loss. Proper evolutionary models may also be relevant to outstanding issues in the domain, notably the connections between typical development and pathology.
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