Fear
Fear is an unpleasant subjective emotional state arising in response to perceived dangers or threats and which, when experienced, is typically associated with physiological and psychological changes. These changes frequently lead to behavioral reactions such as fight-or-flight responses or, in extreme cases, immobilization. Unlike most other animals, humans can experience fear in response to a present or anticipated stimulus and to imagined events.
Most internalizing psychopathologies are associated with and maintained by dysfunctional, anxious, or fearful feelings and thoughts. Phobias, or exaggerated and often disabling fears, are usually similarly dysfunctional.
Fear is often framed as a distinct product of evolution. This hypothesis, however, is becoming increasingly problematic because the psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes and features associated with fear are consistently found to be shared with other negative, highly arousing emotional states such as anger, sadness, disgust, and anxiety. A more scientifically defensible product of evolution is flexibility, or the capacity to both change bodily states and address bodily needs through various behaviors, and, later, for humans, through language too. Attributing fear to nonverbal animals, whether an invertebrate or vertebrate, is equally problematic because the human observer is always imposing that label. Nonverbal animals displaying an emotion "akin to fear" are rather fundamentally exhibiting reflexive defensive behaviors—your fear may be their withdrawal, avoidance, or defensiveness. It is therefore no surprise that human fear, along with other negative emotions, is inextricably linked to culture, social context, and trait-level differences.
Physiological signs
Many physiological changes in the body are associated with fear, summarized as the fight-or-flight response. An innate response for coping with danger, it works by accelerating the breathing rate, heart rate, vasoconstriction of the peripheral blood vessels leading to blood pooling, dilating the pupils, increasing muscle tension including the muscles attached to each hair follicle to contract and causing "goosebumps", or more clinically, piloerection, sweating, increased blood glucose, increased serum calcium, increase in white blood cells called neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and "butterflies in the stomach". This primitive mechanism may help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of physiological changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear.There are observable physical reactions in individuals who experience fear. An individual might experience a feeling of dizziness, lightheadedness, like they are being choked, sweating, shortness of breath, vomiting or nausea, numbness or shaking and any other like symptoms. These bodily reactions inform the individual that they are afraid and should proceed to remove or get away from the stimulus that is causing that fear.
Causes
An influential categorization of stimuli causing fear was proposed by psychologist Jeffrey Alan Gray; namely, intensity, novelty, special evolutionary dangers, stimuli arising during social interaction, and conditioned stimuli. Another categorization was proposed by Archer, who, besides conditioned fear stimuli, categorized fear-evoking Predator stimuli Physical environmental dangers Stimuli associated with increased risk of predation and other dangers Stimuli stemming from conspecifics Species-predictable fear stimuli and experience Fear stimuli that are not species predictable.Nature
Although many fears are learned, the capacity to fear is part of human nature. Many studies have found that certain fears are much more common than others. These fears are also easier to induce in the laboratory. This phenomenon is known as preparedness. Because early humans that were quick to fear dangerous situations were more likely to survive and reproduce; preparedness is theorized to be a genetic effect that is the result of natural selection.From an evolutionary psychology or evolutionary psychiatry perspective, different fears may be different adaptations that have been useful in our evolutionary past. They may have developed during different time periods. Some fears, such as fear of heights, may be common to all mammals and developed during the mesozoic period. Other fears, such as fear of snakes, may be common to all simians and developed during the cenozoic time period. Still others, such as fear of mice and insects, may be unique to humans and developed during the Paleolithic and Neolithic time periods.
Conditioning
Nonhuman animals and humans innovate specific fears as a result of learning. This has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment in 1920, which was inspired after observing a child with an irrational fear of dogs. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear a white rat in the laboratory. The fear became generalized to include other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, dog, and even a Santa Claus mask with white cotton balls in the beard.Fear can be learned by experiencing or watching a frightening traumatic accident. For example, a child falling into a well and struggling to get out may develop a fear of wells, heights, enclosed spaces, or water. There are studies looking at areas of the brain that are affected in relation to fear. When looking at these areas, it was proposed that a person learns to fear regardless of whether they themselves have experienced trauma, or if they have observed the fear in others. In a study completed by Andreas Olsson, Katherine I. Nearing and Elizabeth A. Phelps, the amygdala were affected both when subjects observed someone else being submitted to an aversive event, knowing that the same treatment awaited themselves, and when subjects were subsequently placed in a fear-provoking situation. This suggests that fear can develop in both conditions, not just simply from personal history.
Fear is affected by cultural and historical context. For example, in the early 20th century, many Americans feared polio, a disease that can lead to paralysis. There are consistent cross-cultural differences in how people respond to fear. Display rules affect how likely people are to express the facial expression of fear and other emotions.
Fear of victimization is a function of perceived risk and seriousness of potential harm.
Common triggers
Phobias
According to surveys, some of the most common fears are of demons and ghosts, the existence of evil powers, cockroaches, spiders, snakes, heights, water, enclosed spaces, tunnels, bridges, needles, social rejection, failure, examinations, and public speaking.Regionally some may more so fear terrorist attacks, death, war, criminal or gang violence, being alone, the future, nuclear war, flying, clowns, intimacy, people, and driving.
Uncertainty
Fear of the unknown or irrational fear is caused by negative thinking which arises from anxiety accompanied by a subjective sense of apprehension or dread. Irrational fear shares a common neural pathway with other fears, a pathway that engages the nervous system to mobilize bodily resources in the face of danger or threat. Many people are scared of the "unknown". The irrational fear can branch out to many areas such as the hereafter, the next ten years or even tomorrow. Chronic irrational fear has deleterious effects since the elicitor stimulus is commonly absent or perceived from delusions. Such fear can create comorbidity with the anxiety disorder umbrella. Being scared may cause people to experience anticipatory fear of what may lie ahead rather than planning and evaluating for the same. For example, "continuation of scholarly education" is perceived by many educators as a risk that may cause them fear and stress, and they would rather teach things they've been taught than go and do research.The ambiguity of situations that tend to be uncertain and unpredictable can cause anxiety in addition to other psychological and physical problems in some populations; especially those who engage it constantly, for example, in war-ridden places or in places of conflict, terrorism, abuse, etc. Poor parenting that instills fear can also debilitate a child's psyche development or personality. For example, parents tell their children not to talk to strangers in order to protect them. In school, they would be motivated to not show fear in talking with strangers, but to be assertive and also aware of the risks and the environment in which it takes place. Ambiguous and mixed messages like this can affect their self-esteem and self-confidence. Researchers say talking to strangers is not something to be thwarted but allowed in a parent's presence if required. Developing a sense of equanimity to handle various situations is often advocated as an antidote to irrational fear and as an essential skill by a number of ancient philosophies.
Fear of the unknown "may be a, or possibly the, fundamental fear" from early times when there were many threats to life.
Behavior
Although fear behavior varies from species to species, it is often divided into two main categories; namely, avoidance/flight and immobility. To these, different researchers have added different categories, such as threat display and attack, protective responses, defensive burying, and social responses. Finally, immobility is often divided into freezing and tonic immobility.The decision as to which particular fear behavior to perform is determined by the level of fear as well as the specific context, such as environmental characteristics, the presence of a discrete and localized threat, the distance between threat and subject, threat characteristics, the characteristics of the subject under threat, social conditions, and the amount of experience with the type of the threat.