英語聽力文摘639 牙醫(yī)為何令人害怕
Dear A Moment of Science,
I hate going to the dentist. In fact, I openly fear it. Yet I’ve never actually had a really bad or painful experience with a dentist. So why do I fear it so much?
You’re certainly not alone. Quaking in your boots at the mere thought of a dental check?up–let alone having a cavity taken care of–is a time?honored tradition.
Fear Of Dentists
And it doesn’t necessarily derive from a bad dental experience. New research shows that fear of the dentist is often passed down from parents to their children.
Fathers are especially involved. Previous studies found a link between parents’ attitudes toward the dentist and kids’ fear. But the new study reveals that kids pay even closer attention to how their fathers react when the dentist is involved. Apparently, when fathers display fear and anxiety, kids are most likely to pick up those cues and see dental visits as something to fear.
Fathers Play A Role
Why fathers carry so much weight in influencing how their kids think about the dentist is not clear. At least the study doesn’t really offer an explanation. But it does suggest that fathers can play an important role in what psychologists called positive emotional contagion.
If fathers’ fear of the dentist can contaminate their kids, the opposite might also be true. In other words, dads behaving positively and not displaying fear could orient their kids towards not fearing the dentist.
So the researchers call for parents, and fathers in particular, to be involved in dentist fear prevention campaigns.
為何我會(huì)對(duì)牙醫(yī)感到恐懼
親愛的的《科學(xué)一刻》欄目組，
我很討厭看牙醫(yī)。真的，我對(duì)此感到很恐懼。可是我實(shí)際上并沒有看牙醫(yī)的糟糕經(jīng)歷。那我為什么會(huì)對(duì)此感到如此恐懼呢?
有此感受的不僅僅是你一個(gè)人。一想到要檢查牙齒，腿腳就哆嗦，更別說補(bǔ)牙洞了。這種感受由來已久。
牙醫(yī)恐懼癥
對(duì)牙醫(yī)的害怕不一定來自您糟糕的看病經(jīng)歷。如今有研究表明，對(duì)牙醫(yī)的恐懼感常?？梢酝ㄟ^父母傳遞給子女。
父親們的因素很關(guān)鍵。過去的研究表明，父母對(duì)牙醫(yī)的態(tài)度和子女對(duì)看牙醫(yī)的恐懼感有關(guān)聯(lián)。不過現(xiàn)在有研究發(fā)現(xiàn)子女們會(huì)密切關(guān)注父親看牙醫(yī)的反應(yīng)。明顯的例子是，當(dāng)父親表現(xiàn)出恐懼和焦慮的時(shí)候，子女很可能受到這些心理暗示，把看牙醫(yī)當(dāng)作恐怖的事情對(duì)待。
父親們舉足輕重
父親們?yōu)楹螘?huì)如此大程度地影響子女對(duì)牙醫(yī)的看法，原因尚不可知。至少這項(xiàng)研究沒有給出合理解釋。不過研究指出，父親在被心理學(xué)家稱為“積極情緒傳導(dǎo)”的過程中舉足輕重。
如果父親們對(duì)牙醫(yī)的恐懼會(huì)傳染給他們的子女，那么反之亦然。換句話說，父親們正面的言行，不帶恐懼的表現(xiàn)可以引導(dǎo)他們的子女不再害怕牙醫(yī)。
因此研究人員呼吁父母們，尤其是父親們，行動(dòng)起來，幫助子女防治牙醫(yī)恐懼癥。
