Abstract:
The purposes of this research study were to investigate normal fears of children and adolescents in the Bangkok Metropolis, and to examine in different dimensions. Participants were 915 school students in Bangkok whose age ranged from 7-18 years. The participants were divided into 3 age-groups: 1) younger children, 2) older children, and 3) adolescents, and were administered The Fear Survey Schedule for Thai Schedule and Adolescents. Data were analyzed in 4 dimensions using factor analysis, two-way ANOVA, discriminant analysis, and frequency distributions, Findings were as follows: 1.Five factors of normal fears reported were Fear of Death and Severe Danger, Fear of Untrustable Person, Animals, and Thing, Fear of Ghosts or Thrilling or Discomfortable things, Fear of Psychic Stress, Social evaluation, and Failure and Fear of Criticism or Punishment and Fear Related to Family 2.Girls obtained significantly higher - tear-intensity scores and fear-prevalence scores than boys did (p< ,05). In general, fear intensity and prevalence decreased with age (p< .05). However, no interaction effects between sex and age-group were found. 3.Sex differences in fear content were found and the best discriminating fear stimulus was Perverted persons or peepers. Girls obtained higher fear scores on this item and the remaining 10 fear stimuli than boys. The type of fear that best discriminated younger children and adolescents was Getting lost in a crowd. Younger children obtained higher fear scores on this item and the remaining 12 fear stimuli than adolescents. 4.The first ranked common fear for the overall sample and the sub-groups of participants were Lost of organ, physical disability or helplessness, with the exception of the younger-children group who reported End of the world as the first ranked common fear.