Fear

For other uses, see Fear (disambiguation).

Fear is an emotional response to impending danger, that is tied to anxiety. Behavioral theorists, like Watson and Ekman, have both suggested that fear, along with a few other basic emotions (e.g., joy and anger), is a trait innate to most higher functioning organisms. Fear is a survival mechanism, and usually occurs in response to a specific negative stimulus.

Varieties

Fear can be distinguished into serious fear, metus gravis, and trifling fear, metus levis. Serious fear is a response to some formidable impending peril, while trifling fear arises from confrontation with inconsequential danger.

Fear can be described by different terms in accordance with its relative degrees. Personal fear varies extremely in degree from mild caution to extreme phobia and paranoia. Fear is related to a number of emotional states including worry, anxiety, terror, fright, paranoia, horror, panic (social and personal), persecution complex and dread.

Fears may be a factor within a larger social network, where in personal fears are synergetically compounded as mass hysteria.

• Paranoia is a term used to describe a psychosis of fear, described as a heightened perception of being persecuted, false or otherwise. This degree of fear often indicates that one has changed their normal behavior in radical ways, and may have become extremely compulsive. Sometimes, the result of extreme paranoia is a phobia.

• Distrust in the context of interpersonal fear, is sometimes explained as the inward feeling of caution, usually focused towards a person, representing an unwillingness to trust in someone else. Distrust is not a lack of faith or belief in someone, but a feeling of warning towards someone or something questionable or unknown. For example, one may "distrust" a stranger who acts in a way that is perceived as "odd." Likewise one may "distrust" the safety of a rusty old bridge across a 100 ft drop.

• Terror refers to a pronounced state of fear - which usually occurs before the state of horror - when someone becomes overwhelmed with a sense of immediate danger. Also, it can be caused by perceiving the (possibly extreme) phobia. As a consequence, terror overwhelms the person to the point of making irrational choices and non-typical behavior.

Fear can also affect the subconcious and unconcious mind, most notably through nightmares.

Causes

Although fear is an innate response, objects of fear can be learned. This has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with Watson's Little Albert experiment in 1920. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory. In the real world, fear may also be acquired by a traumatic accident. For example, if a child falls into a well and struggles to get out, he or she may develop a fear of either enclosed spaces (claustrophobia) or of water (hydrophobia.)

Researchers have found that certain fears (e.g. animals, heights) are much more common than others (e.g. flowers, clouds). They are also much easier to induce in the laboratory. It is possible that those fears associated with increased odds of survival in our ancestors evolved over time by natural selection. This phenomenon has been called preparedness. Physiologically, the fear response is linked to activity in the amygdala of the limbic system.

While fear is most commonly associated with physical conditions or objects, in humans fear can also be inspired by more abstract concepts. The fear of losing control, for example, is a commonly referenced condition, as is fear of ridicule or social censure. These types of fear tend not to have the same physiological effects as fears of the more immediate physical world, however they have similar behavioural outcomes, and can affect an individual on a far longer timescale than would typically be expected of a fear of a physical object.

Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti said that thinking is the root cause of fear. Thinking about a painful incident in the past projects the fear of having the pain repeated again in the future. Fear is also related to pleasure. Thinking with the images of past pleasure, thought imagines that one may not have that pleasure repeated in the future; so thought engenders fear. Thought tries to sustain pleasure and thereby nourishes fear.

The experience of fear may also be influenced by social norms and values. In 19th century Britain, one of the biggest fears was of dying poor, unmourned, unremembered, and possibly ending up on an anatomist's dissection table. In the early 20th century, many people feared polio, a disease which cripples the body part it affects, leaving the body part immobilized for the rest of one's life.

Characteristics

Behavioral

In fear, one may go through various emotional stages. A good example of this is the cornered rat, which will try to run away until it is finally cornered by its predator, at which point it will become belligerent and fight back with heavy aggression until it either escapes or is captured.

The same goes for most animals. Humans can become very intimidated by fear; causing them to go along with another's wishes without caring about their own input. They can also become equally violent, and can even become deadly; it is an instinctive reaction caused by rising adrenaline levels rather than a consciously thought-out decision. This is why in many cases the full penalty cannot be made in cases of the court of law.

The facial expression of fear includes the following components:

• One's eyes widen (out of anticipation for what will happen next)
• The pupils dilate (to take in more light)
• The upper lip rises
• The brows draw together
• Lips stretch horizontally.

Physiological

The physiological effects of fear can be better understood from the perspective of the sympathetic nervous responses (fight-or-flight), as compared to parasympathetic response, which is a more relaxed state.

• muscles used for physical movement are tightened and primed with oxygen in preparation for a physical fight or flight response.

• perspiration occurs due to blood being shunted from body's viscera to the peripheral parts of the body. Blood that is shunted from the viscera to the rest of the body will transfer, along with oxygen and nutrients, heat, prompting perspiration to cool the body.

• the sensory organs are modified (or redirected) to deal with events that have evolutionarily been the most likely to cause harm. For example, the dilation of the pupils and relaxation of the lens, allowing more light to enter the eye, which is more conducive to far vision. Or fine body hair standing up to alert one to creeping insects, etc.

• when the stimulus is shocking or abrupt, a common reaction is to cover or otherwise protect vulnerable parts of the anatomy, particularly the face and head.

• when a fear stimulus occurs unexpectedly, the victim of the fear response could possibly jump or give a small start.

• the person's heart rate and heartbeat may increase.

Moral and legal issues

Fear may be a consideration in determining the wrongness of acts, in some views. Actions done under stress of fear, unless of course it be so intense as to have dethroned reason, are accounted the legitimate progeny of the human will, or are, as the theologians say, simply voluntary, and therefore imputable. The reason is obvious, such acts lack neither adequate advertence nor sufficient consent, even though the latter be elicited only to avoid a greater evil or one conceived to be greater. Inasmuch, however, as they are accompanied by a more or less vehement repugnance, they are said to be in a limited and partial sense involuntary.

Since fear diminishes freedom of action, contracts entered into through fear may be judged invalid; similarly fear sometimes excuses from the application of the law in a particular case; it also excuses from the penalty attached to an act contrary to the law. The cause of fear is found in oneself or in a natural cause (intrinsic fear) or it is found in another person (extrinsic fear). Fear may be grave, such for instance as would influence a steadfast man, or it may be slight, such as would affect a person of weak will. In order that fear may be considered grave, certain conditions are requisite: the fear must be grave in itself, and not merely in the estimation of the person fearing; it must be based on a reasonable foundation; the threats must be possible of execution; the execution of the threats must be inevitable. Fear, again, is either just or unjust, according to the justness or otherwise of the reasons which lead to the use of fear as a compelling force. Reverential fear is that which may exist between superiors and their subjects. Grave fear diminishes willpower but cannot be said to totally take it away, except in some very exceptional cases. Slight fear (metus levis) is not considered even to diminish the will power, hence the legal expression "Foolish fear is not a just excuse".

See also

• Angst
• Appeal to fear
• Culture of fear
• Disgust
• Fear of death
• Sigmund Freud
• Guilt
• Hope and fear
• Island tameness

• Litany against fear
• Panic
• Phobia
• Night terror
• Shame
• Strategy of tension

Further reading

• Joanna Bourke (2005), Fear: a cultural history, Virago
• Corey Robin (2004), Fear: the history of a political idea, Oxford University Press
• Duenwald, Mary. "The Psychology of ...Facial Expressions" Discovery Magazine Vol. 26 NO. 1
• Krishnamurti, J. (1995), On Fear, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-06-251014-2

External links

• Quotations on Fear
• A Buddhist View on Fear
• The Smell of Fear, a Research Study
• Catholic Encyclopedia "Fear (in Canon Law)"
• Catholic Encyclopedia "Fear (from a Moral Standpoint)"
• How Stuff Works - Fear
• Fearless News - An online community collecting statistics on fear in mass media