Final answer:
A fear common to children is stranger anxiety, which emerges around the same time they develop object permanence. Children can also show generalized fear responses, as seen in Watson and Rayner's Little Albert experiment. Habituation helps children and animals reduce fear through repeated exposure to a non-threatening stimulus.
Step-by-step explanation:
Which of the following BEST describes a fear common to children? One of the fears common to children is stranger anxiety, which is well-documented in psychological research. Stranger anxiety relates to a child's fear of unfamiliar people and can manifest in various behaviors such as crying, clinging to a caregiver, or showing preference for familiar faces over strangers. This is linked to Jean Piaget's theory that during the sensorimotor stage, where children develop object permanence, they may also begin to exhibit stranger anxiety due to the inability to assimilate a stranger into an existing schema.
In the classic study by Watson and Rayner, a young boy named Little Albert was conditioned to fear a white rat, which subsequently led to a broader fear of furry objects through a process called stimulus generalization. This type of conditioned fear response can also be seen as a fear common in children, where an initial fear may generalize to similar stimuli. Moreover, as children grow older, their fears often become more realistic and less fantasy-based due to cognitive development and a better understanding of the world around them.
Finally, the concept of habituation is significant in understanding how repeated exposure to a non-threatening stimulus can help reduce fear. An example of this is how crows get used to a scarecrow and learn that it poses no threat, demonstrating that this concept of habituation is not only limited to humans but occurs across various species.