ABSTRACT
There is widespread agreement that the periods of infancy and childhood are more important than any other stages of development in determining the intensity and character of adult fears and anxieties. Evidence comes primarily from observation and analysis of the behavior of adults of all ages, indicating that the basic patterns of adult anxieties and fears originate in the experiences of infancy and childhood rather than those of the adult period, even when the latter are of traumatic intensity (cf. White, 1956). These repeatedly confirmed observations pose a problem of major dimensions for the psychologist, for if we make the plausible (and really only possible) assumption that these motivational states specific to each individual are learned, how can we
account for the fact that learned responses acquired early in life play such an important role, when a great deal of research evidence informs us that infants and children are strikingly inferior to adults in many dimensions of learning (Harlow, 1959; Munn, 1954)? One possible explanation that has not been adequately explored is that learned drives such as fear and anxiety that involve massive autonomic reactions function differently in infancy and childhood from instrumental conditioning and higher order forms of learning.
