Fear
Fear is one of the most basic human emotions. It is programmed into the nervous system and works like an instinct. From the time we’re infants, we are equipped with the survival instincts necessary to respond with fear when we sense danger or feel unsafe.
Fear helps protect us. It makes us alert to danger and prepares us to deal with it. Feeling afraid is very natural — and helpful — in some situations. Fear can be like a warning, a signal that cautions us to be careful.
Like all emotions, fear can be mild, medium, or intense, depending on the situation and the person. A feeling of fear can be brief or it can last longer.
All of us get scared, and all of us have different thresholds for what makes us afraid. Some of us enjoy the thrill of horror movies, and some of us (like myself) thought the fire scene in Bambi was too frightening.
A phobia is an intense fear reaction to a particular thing or a situation. With a phobia, the fear is out of proportion to the potential danger. But to the person with the phobia, the danger feels real because the fear is so very strong.
Phobias cause people to worry about, dread, feel upset by, and avoid the things or situations they fear because the physical sensations of fear can be so intense. So having a phobia can interfere with normal activities. A person with a phobia of dogs might feel afraid to walk to school in case he or she sees a dog on the way. Someone with an elevator phobia might avoid a field trip if it involves going on an elevator.
A girl with a phobia of thunderstorms might be afraid to go to school if the weather forecast predicts a storm. She might feel terrible distress and fear when the sky turns cloudy. A guy with social phobia experiences intense fear of public speaking or interacting, and may be afraid to answer questions in class, give a report, or speak to classmates in the lunchroom.
It can be exhausting and upsetting to feel the intense fear that goes with having a phobia. It can be disappointing to miss out on opportunities because fear is holding you back. And it can be confusing and embarrassing to feel afraid of things that others seem to have no problem with.
Sometimes, people get teased about their fears. Even if the person doing the teasing doesn’t mean to be unkind and unfair, teasing only makes the situation worse.
Whatever it is that scares you, what we can agree on is that fear causes our bodies to react. Hearts pound. Palms sweat. Muscles freeze. Knees shake.
Each of us has felt afraid, and we can all recognize fear in many animal species. Yet there is no consensus in the scientific study of fear. Some argue that “fear” is a psychological construct rather than discoverable through scientific investigation. Others argue that the term “fear” cannot properly be applied to animals because we cannot know whether they feel afraid. Studies in rodents show that there are highly specific brain circuits for fear, whereas findings from human neuroimaging seem to make the opposite claim. Here I review the field and urge three approaches that could reconcile the debates. For one, we need a broadly comparative approach that would identify core components of fear conserved across phylogeny. This also pushes us towards the second point of emphasis: an ecological theory of fear that is essentially functional. Finally, we should aim to incorporate the conscious experience of being afraid, reinvigorating the study of feelings across species.
Fear is the word we use to describe our emotional reaction to something that seems dangerous. But the word “fear” is used in another way, too: to name something a person often feels afraid of.
People fear things or situations that make them feel unsafe or unsure. For instance, someone who isn’t a strong swimmer might have a fear of deep water. In this case, the fear is helpful because it cautions the person to stay safe. Someone could overcome this fear by learning how to swim safely.
Fear can be healthy if it cautions a person to stay safe around something that could be dangerous. But sometimes a fear is unnecessary and causes more caution than the situation calls for.
Many people have a fear of public speaking. Whether it’s reporting class, speaking at an assembly, or reciting lines in the school play, speaking in front of others is one of the most common fears people have.
People tend to avoid the situations or things they fear. But this doesn’t help them overcome fear — in fact, it can be the reverse. Avoiding something scary reinforces a fear and keeps it strong.
People can overcome unnecessary fears by giving themselves the chance to learn about and gradually get used to the thing or situation they’re afraid of. For example, people who fly despite a fear of flying can become used to unfamiliar sensations like takeoff or turbulence. They learn what to expect and have a chance to watch what others do to relax and enjoy the flight. Gradually (and safely) facing fear helps someone overcome it.
Well, if you are experiencing these symptoms, you have your amygdala to thank. The amygdala is the part of the brain that rests behind the eye and over the ear. There are two of them, and they are tiny and almond-shaped, but don’t let the size fool you. Without the amygdala, humans would not have survived throughout history. The amygdala is the brain’s alarm system.
At the outset, we need an operational definition of “fear”. The approach I advocate is pragmatic: fear is an intervening variable between sets of context-dependent stimuli and suites of behavioural responses. Its usefulness is explanatory, and one can be agnostic about any correspondence with other psychological, let alone neurobiological, states. Such a variable could take on a consistent set of values within an individual, and differ systematically between individuals, making it a candidate for a personality trait. It could be linked to variation in genotype, at least in part, making it a candidate for an endophenotype.
When we sense danger, the brain reacts instantly, sending signals that activate the nervous system. This causes physical responses, such as a faster heartbeat, rapid breathing, and an increase in blood pressure. Blood pumps to muscle groups to prepare the body for physical action (such as running or fighting). Skin sweats to keep the body cool. Some people might notice sensations in the stomach, head, chest, legs, or hands. These physical sensations of fear can be mild or strong.
This response is known as “fight or flight” because that is exactly what the body is preparing itself to do: fight off the danger or run fast to get away. The body stays in this state of fight-flight until the brain receives an “all clear” message and turns off the response.
Sometimes fear is triggered by something startling or unexpected (like a loud noise), even if it’s not dangerous. That’s because the fear reaction is activated instantly — a few seconds faster than the thinking part of the brain can process or evaluate what’s happening. As soon as the brain gets enough information to realize there’s no danger (“Oh, it’s just a balloon bursting — whew!”), it turns off the fear reaction. All this can happen in seconds.
We can learn quite a lot from animals about how we respond when we are frightened. When an animal is in fear, its body freezes, the heart rate increases, and stress hormones enter the blood. In the animal kingdom, this is helpful because a potential predator cannot see potential prey if it isn’t moving. So remaining still can be a lifesaver. And the increased heart rate and stress hormones prepare the body to flee if all else fails. The amygdala, along with other parts of the brain (the thalamus, hypothalamus, and hippocampus), are key to our fight-or-flight reaction.
Could you be in a state of fear without feeling afraid? Is fear applicable to species like rats? What about flies? And how would you know?
Laypeople have no difficulty using the word “fear” in everyday conversation, yet are quickly stumped by questions such as these. So are psychologists and biologists. Despite an explosion of recent findings, spurred in large part by funding to help understand mood and anxiety disorders, the field of emotion research is more fragmented than ever. Much of this fragmentation, and much of the excitement, comes from the highly interdisciplinary nature of how fear is being investigated. A flurry of neurobiological data has come from two technical developments: fMRI (applied to humans) and optogenetics (applied to mice). Yet findings from these two approaches, together with ecological and psychological work, have not resulted in the emergence of any consensus on how to operationalize or investigate the emotion of fear. Here I review this field from a broad perspective and suggest an approach to investigating fear that aims to move beyond the debates, and reinvigorate studies by returning to some of the historical roots. Everyone gets scared; fear is an unavoidable facet of the human experience.
People generally consider fear an unpleasant emotion, but some go out of their way to trigger it — for example, by jumping out of planes or watching scary movies.
Fear is justifiable; for instance, hearing footsteps inside your house when you know that you are the only one at home is a valid reason to be terrified.
Fear can also be inappropriate. For example, we might experience a rush of terror while watching a slasher movie, even though we know that the monster is an actor in makeup and that the blood is not real.
Many individuals consider phobias to be the most inappropriate manifestation of fear. These can attach themselves to pretty much anything — spiders, clowns, paper, or carpets — and significantly impact people’s lives.
Specifying the sets of stimuli that normally elicit fear, and the sets of behavioural, autonomic, endocrine, and cognitive responses caused by fear, is of course a large and complex task. It is made easier by statistical regularities in the environment, and by phylogenetic continuity. There are evolved sets of behavioural packages to particular classes of stimuli encountered in a particular context in the case of rats, as in humans. Ecologists uncover the packages of behaviours and classes of stimuli as they occur in their natural environment, psychologists attempt to link their processing to the rest of cognition, and neuroscientists work on figuring out how the stimuli can be linked to the behaviours of the brain.
People can learn to overcome phobias by gradually facing their fears. This is not easy at first. It takes willingness and bravery. Sometimes people need the help of a therapist to guide them through the process.
Overcoming a phobia usually starts with making a long list of the person’s fears in the least-to-worst order. For example, with a dog phobia, the list might start with the things the person is least afraid of, such as looking at a photo of a dog. It will then work up to your worst fears, such as standing next to someone who’s petting a dog, petting a dog on a leash, and walking a dog.
Gradually, and with support, the person tries each fear situation on the list — one at a time, starting with the least fear. The person isn’t forced to do anything and works on each fear until he or she feels comfortable, taking as long as needed.
A therapist could also show someone with a dog phobia how to approach, pet, and walk a dog, and help the person to try it, too. The person may expect terrible things to happen when near a dog. Talking about this can help, too. When people find that what they fear doesn’t turn out to be true, it can be a great relief.
A therapist might also teach relaxation practices such as specific ways of breathing, muscle relaxation training, or soothing self-talk. These can help people feel comfortable and bold enough to face the fears on their list.
As somebody gets used to a feared object or situation, the brain adjusts how it responds and the phobia is overcome.
Often, the hardest part of overcoming a phobia is getting started. Once a person decides to go for it — and gets the right coaching and support — it can be surprising how quickly fear can melt away.
When danger lurks, fear spreads through a crowd as body postures alter in a rapid cascade from one individual to the next. Animal ethologists have described situations in which emotions are communicated behaviorally through rapidly changing behaviour as can be observed in the flight of a flock of birds when a source of danger appears on the horizon. The notion of emotional contagion is sometimes used to refer to similar automatic posture adjustments in humans. From Darwin’s evolutionary perspective, communication of emotion by body movements occupies a privileged position as emotions embody action schemes that have evolved in the service of survival. However, at present, little is known about the possible mechanisms in the human brain sustaining bodily communication of emotion in the service of adaptive action. The present study begins to explore this issue.
To date, most investigations of the perception of emotion have concentrated on brain activity generated by the recognition of still images of facial expressions, and virtually all that is known about the perception of emotion in humans is based on such data. Major insights concern the role of the amygdala in concert with that of the fusiform cortex, prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), medial frontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus, and somatosensory cortex. Interestingly, however, some of these same areas also seem to play a role in processing biological movement. For example, viewing biological movement patterns, which are experienced as pleasant, activates subcortical structures, including the amygdala, and visual perception of biological motion activates two areas in the occipital and fusiform cortex. Recent findings in non-human primates have drawn attention to the brain’s ability to represent actions through canonical neurons (similarly active when viewing an object and grasping it) and mirror neurons (similarly active when observing an action and performing the action). However, to date, it is not known whether these brain areas play a role when humans view body movements expressing emotion.
As far as evolution is concerned, fear is ancient, and, to a certain extent, we can thank fear for our success as a species. Any creature that does not run and hide from bigger animals or dangerous situations is likely to be removed from the gene pool before it has the chance to procreate.
Fear’s essential role in survival helps explain why it sometimes seems a little trigger-happy.
In other words, it makes sense to be a little jumpy if you are an animal in a hostile environment. It is better to run and hide when your own shadow catches you by surprise than to presume that a shadow is safe, only to be eaten by a bear 5 seconds later.
