Lesson in Malice 2

fear

 [ feer ]   

1. feeling of anxiety: an unpleasant feeling of anxiety or apprehension caused by the presence or anticipation of danger
2. frightening thought: an idea, thought, or other entity that causes feelings of fear
3. reverence: respect or awe for somebody or something

Synonyms: terror, dread, anxiety, horror, distress, fright, panic, alarm, trepidation,apprehension

What is fear? Technically it is a fight or flight response to a real or perceived threat. Fear is an emotion that responds to threatening situations. Animals exhibit fear and have elaborate defense mechanisms built in to respond to threats. Because we are physically an animal so do we. We respond to threat pretty much in the same way an animal does. Except that humans have a higher mental capacity than animals. This is a gift that separates us from the animal kingdom, but at the same time gives us rational thought. So that humans can reason their situations out and react not in a rigid way as an animal does, but in varied ways.

An animal cannot choose to be not fearful, it either is or isn't fearful depending on the situation. Animals are programmed to respond based on instinct. That is that they do what they do because they are compelled to act in a certain way. Humans have some of the same instinct tendencies that animals have, but with the capacity to rationalize our situations, we can, no matter what the threat, real or perceived, choose to fear or not to fear.


Fear is an Emotion
Fear is an emotion, just like sadness or happiness or joy..... Imagine walking down a long dark road at 2am. If while you are doing that you are thinking the boogie-man is just around the next corner, then you are going be thinking you're in danger, and your emotion of fear will be reacting. That is why in a situation like that you are going to be finding yourself running very soon. But you would be running from what? A real threat? No, you would be running from your imagination. Something that isn't there.

It's precisely this kind of fear that I would like to address here. The kind which is based not on a real threat, but on what our minds make out as threats. What kind of threat would that be. Well it could be that feeling of dread we sometimes get when you come into work in the morning and the boss grunts at you? You think to yourself, "Oh shit, there're pissed, I must be in trouble".

Fear is difficult to describe in scientific terms due to the subjective nature of the experience of fear.  Dependent upon the experiencer's past encounter with threatening, fearful, and or anxious situations generally will determine what she/he may describe as a fearful, fearful, or anxious event.  People respond differently to threatening situations.  The type of threat that is perceived by the individual and the learned social responses to fearful situations could effect how an individual responds to a given threat.

Psychological research has demonstrated that fear can be acquired either through a conditioning process or by vicarious experiences.  The conditioning theories postulate that fear is a learned response "occurring to signals (conditioned stimuli) that are premonitory of (i.e., have in the past been followed by) situations of injury or pain (unconditional stimuli)"  Conditioning can cause fear, it also can be used to reduce or extinguish some fears by the use of systematic desensitization.  Fears that are acquired vicariously are believed to be developed by observing fear in others.  Bandura observed that not only could attitudes and behaviors be developed by observing others but by using the psychological technique of modeling other people's appropriate behavior, fearful attitudes and behaviors can be changed.

Additionally, there is some research offering theories that fear can also be acquired through the absorption of threatening information. "fears can be generated by information that is slightly or not at all threatening but which is misinterpreted by the recipient as being threatening"