Observational conditioning of snake fear in rhesus monkeys

Hypothesized that observational conditioning is involved in the origins of many human and nonhuman primates' fears and phobias. In Exp I, a new index of snake fear in 7 19-28 yr old wild-reared rhesus monkeys and 9 laboratory-reared offspring (aged 8 mo to 6 yrs) was tested. Results show the measure was useful and demonstrated that young Ss raised by parents who had a fear of snakes did not acquire the fear in the absence of any specific experience with snakes. In Exp II, using 5 of the wild-reared Ss and 6 of the laboratory-reared Ss from Exp I, 5 of 6 offspring acquired an intense and persistent fear of snakes as a result of observing their wild-reared parents behave fearfully in the presence of real, toy, or model snakes for a short period of time. The fear was not context specific and showed no significant signs of diminution at 3-mo follow-up. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).