Well considering my information was taught, as opposed to read, it would probably take me a while to shovel through books and internet to find the source. I know not all psychology can be correct, but you can't deny the point that they could be right, of course you can't rule out other possibilities either, people could come to their fears for other reasons, but if you have a set of traumatic events or just an event, that correlates with the abnormality, or phobia, then your conclusion would be that, there is no way to be certain, but in knowing that, parents should really avoid causing their kid's fear or trauma.
But if you're insistent on evidence, for what I have said, then, I'll have to do my best and look at my Psychology text book, but none of the experiments in there are to do with this, but rather they have outlines on what makes people 'abnormal'
So here is a quote for you:
"Childhood experience play a crucial part in adult development. Particularly distressing events in childhood may also become part of the unconscious. Although unconscious they may be expressed in later abnormal behaviour."
Of course not everybody trust the psychodynamic psychologists, because some of their ideas are wacky,
Behaviourists say that phobias are caused by "classical conditioning" the means in which you learn through association.
Cognitivists and Biologists don't look at the actual life of it's patients, but rather more focused on where the problem is and the solution, so I can't grab info on that one.
Did The Buddha have a Zen micro?
