Article: Fear

For other uses, see Fear (disambiguation).

Actor Haley Joel Osment, starring in the film The Sixth Sense, lying in his bed afraid of the dead.

Fear is an unpleasant feeling of perceived risk or danger, whether it be real or imagined. Fear also can be described as a feeling of extreme dislike towards certain conditions, objects, people, or situations such as: fear of darkness, fear of ghosts, etc. It is one of the basic emotions and is linked heavily to the amygdala neurons.

Fear may underlie some phenomena of behavior modification, although these phenomena can be explained without adducing fear as a factor in them. Furthermore, application of aversive stimuli is also often ineffective in producing change in the behaviour intended to be changed. Fearing objects or contexts can be learned; in animals this is being studied as fear conditioning, which depends on the emotional circuitry of the brain.

Fear inside a person has different degrees and varies from one person to another (see also phobia). If not properly handled, fear can lead to social problems. People who experience intense fear have been known to commit irrational and/or dangerous acts.

Some philosophers have considered fear to be a useless emotion; other thinkers note the usefulness of fear as a warning of potentially unpleasant situations or consequences. Still others consider that fear is the fuel that feeds the ego's (as in "separating/judgmental agent") engine.

"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear." - Bertrand Russell

It might also be useful to note that "fear" in the sense of 'God Fearing' means "To regard with reverence and awe". (OED)

Degrees of fear

Fear can be described by different terms in accordance with its relative degrees. Fear covers a number of terms - worry, anxiety, terror, fright, paranoia, horror, persecution complex and dread.

Distrust

Distrust is the period of warning before the actual fear begins, sometimes explained as the inward feeling of caution, usually focused towards a person or object. Distrust is a lack of faith or belief, described as a warning feeling towards something questionable or unknown. For example, having distrust in a rickety old bridge across a 100 ft drop.

Paranoia

Paranoia is a term used to describe a psychosis of fear, related to a false perception of being persecuted (see also Guilt) This perception often causes one to change their normal behavior in radical ways, after time their behaviour may become extremely compulsive.

Terror

Terror refers to a pronounced state of fear, which usually occurs after the state of horror, when someone becomes overwhelmed with a sense of immediate danger. Thus, terror overwhelms the person to the point of making irrational choices and non-typical behavior.

Expression

Facial

In fear, one's eyes widen and the upper lip rises. The brows draw together and the lips stretch horizontally. The speech is slurred and it takes longer to think through what one wants to say in any given situation. Eyes tend to get wide when one has fear, out of anticipation for what will happen next.

Cause of fear

The causes of fear can vary to a surprising degree; fear is to a certain extent a "cultural artifact" (Clifford Geertz). 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. By the early twentieth century, this had given way to a fear of being buried alive, to the extent that those who could afford it would make all sorts of arrangements to ensure this would be avoided (e.g. glass lids for observation, and breathing pipes for survival until rescued). During the Second World War, fear of death by bombing was much less prevalent than during World War I, even though many more bombs fell; air wardens would complain of civilians continuing to gossip on street corners instead of taking shelter. Similarly, when cars were new, dislike of them from the public pushed laws requiring a guard with a red flag to walk in front of it to warn the public of traffic. In 2005, University of Toronto researchers traced the origin of memories to the prefrontal cortex of the brain.[1]

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 0062510142

See also

• Angst
• Phobia
• Night terror
• Appeal to fear
• Culture of fear
• Shame
• Guilt
• Freud
• Litany against fear
• Panic
• Strategy of tension

Suggested reading: The Gift of Fear by GAvin De Becker Dell Publishing Company 1997. Gives a different view of fear and how it can be used to help us survive.