Fear
What is fear?
Fear, or fearfulness, is one of the so-called basic or universal emotions in response to perceived threats to our or others’ safety and welfare. The experience and expression of fear is considered to serve important survival functions, for example to avoid physical or social harm but also to signal a need for help and to get attention from others.
How is fear expressed?
We often experience fear when we evaluate events to be unexpected, unpleasant, caused by something outside our control, and if we find ourselves unable to cope in response to the actual or imagined threat.
Fear is said to have a characteristic facial expression which includes widened eyes, stretched lips, and raised eyebrows.1 However, there is considerable debate as to how universal (similar across cultures) these facial expressions are and how variable these expressions can be from person to person.
Experiencing fear is often described and characterised by heavy breathing, an increased heart rate, tightened neck muscles, increased pupil dilation, increased blood pressure, as well as increased skin conductance, e.g., ‘sweaty palms’.2 Fearfulness can also be expressed in the tone of voice to include screams and gasps.3,4,5
What causes fear?
We can classify different types of fear: arising from social interactions or from shared environments, in response to actual or perceived harm, triggered by actual (or imagined) animals, or resulting from being in crowed spaces (i.e., agoraphobia).6
Research found that the majority of infants exhibit fear of strangers as they reach the end of their first year of life.7
According to evolutionary psychology, experiencing and expressing fear is adaptive and increases an individual’s chances of survival. However, most research seems to suggest that we are not born with innate fear responses. Instead, it is suggested that humans are born with the capacity (including attentional biases) to develop fears of certain events.8
Good to know
Research on fear regulation has highlighted the advantage of attentional redirection. For example, children who were scared of blood being drawn using needles at the doctors, show reduced fear when distracted by hand puppets.9 Caregivers can help reduce fear in children by redirecting their attention from the fear-evoking stimulus onto a comforting object or toy.
Studies found that children pay special attention to caregivers and modify their fear responses accordingly. When caregivers express fear and/or anxious behaviour, children mirror that response to that stimulus.10 Similarly, children also pay attention to their caregiver’s protective behaviour, causing them to remain in a state of heightened alert.11
In an experimental paradigm where infants can cross a visual (non-real) cliff, it was found infants’ approach or avoidance behaviour on the visual cliff was influenced by their mothers’ emotional facial expressions.12
Though there is some debate about the specific brain regions involved in fear processing, much research suggests primarily activation in the amygdala, as well as other regions such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the putamen.13
Artwork
Illustrations provided by Allysa Adams
www.allysaadamsillustration.com
References
- Ekman, Paul. "Darwin, deception, and facial expression." Annals of the new York Academy of sciences 1000, no. 1 (2003): 205-221.
- Kreibig, Sylvia D. "Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: A review." Biological psychology 84, no. 3 (2010): 394-421.
- Barrett, Lisa Feldman. "The conceptual act theory: A précis." Emotion review 6, no. 4 (2014): 292-297.
- Sauter, Disa A., Frank Eisner, Paul Ekman, and Sophie K. Scott. "Cross-cultural recognition of basic emotions through nonverbal emotional vocalizations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 6 (2010): 2408-2412.
- Keltner, Dacher, Jessica Tracy, Disa A. Sauter, Daniel C. Cordaro, and Galen McNeil. "Expression of emotion." Handbook of emotions 4 (2016): 467-482.
- Arrindell, Willem A., Mary J. Pickersgill, Harald Merckelbach, Angélique M. Ardon, and Frieda C. Cornet. "Phobic dimensions: III. Factor analytic approaches to the study of common phobic fears; an updated review of findings obtained with adult subjects." Advances in behaviour research and therapy 13, no. 2 (1991): 73-130.
- Brooks, Jeanne, and Michael Lewis. "Attachment behavior in thirteen-month-old, opposite-sex twins." Child Development (1974): 243-247.
- Thrasher, Cat, and Vanessa LoBue. "Do infants find snakes aversive? Infants’ physiological responses to “fear-relevant” stimuli." Journal of experimental child psychology 142 (2016): 382-390.
- Oluç, Tuğba, and Arzu Sarialioğlu. "The effect of a hand puppet-based therapeutic play for preschool children on the fear and pain associated with blood collection procedure." Journal of Pediatric Nursing 72 (2023): e80-e86.
- De Rosnay, Marc, Peter J. Cooper, Nicolas Tsigaras, and Lynne Murray. "Transmission of social anxiety from mother to infant: An experimental study using a social referencing paradigm." Behaviour research and therapy 44, no. 8 (2006): 1165-1175.
- Buss, Kristin A., and Elizabeth J. Kiel. "Do maternal protective behaviors alleviate toddlers’ fearful distress?." International Journal of Behavioral Development 35, no. 2 (2011): 136-143.
- Klinnert, Mary D., Joseph J. Campos, James F. Sorce, Robert N. Emde, and M. A. R. I. L. Y. N. Svejda. "Emotions as behavior regulators: Social referencing in infancy." In Emotions in early development, pp. 57-86. Academic Press, 1983.
- Thomas, Kathleen M., Wayne C. Drevets, Ronald E. Dahl, Neal D. Ryan, Boris Birmaher, Clayton H. Eccard, David Axelson, Paul J. Whalen, and B. J. Casey. "Amygdala response to fearful faces in anxious and depressed children." Archives of general psychiatry 58, no. 11 (2001): 1057-1063.