Fear is an emotion felt by all animals on the planet, including humans. Fear usually comes with a belief that something or someone is dangerous. It is something unpleasant and it is caused by a threat or something that may result in pain. As Alfred Adler’s (cited in Ansbacher and Ansbacher, 1956, p.277) theory mentions,
Thus, how do we ensure that we do not indadvertedly create self-fulfilling prophecies? How do we ensure that our fears do not prevent us from making the decisions that ultimately will shape our very future? What can fear can teach us, if anything?
As Samantha Lindley (2012),
“Pain, fear and anxiety are intimately linked in the brain and body, anatomically, chemically and as a function of survival.” When one experiences fear, the
fight-or-flight response is triggered by the
hypothalamus. This mechanism provided unconsciously by the body itself serves to protect one against danger. The reaction makes the body pump adrenaline into the muscles in order to get power to either fight or escape a potential dangerous situation. In the mean time, the heart rate and breathing rates also increase in order to pump more blood throughout the body. The body then becomes tense and alert to any external change. The last step is when the
pituitary gland, hormone-secreting part of the brain, releases different hormones that help the body responding to the threat (Cannon, 1970, pp. 20-21). While many mechanisms are triggered inside the body as fear is experienced,
“responses such as profuse sweating, trembling and rapid heartbeat are common accompaniments” (Blum, 1966, p.30). All these mechanisms happen simultaneously and are followed by a cooling down, when the hormone level comes back to normal
Fear itself is useful in a sense that it triggers the response that protects animals against danger. This emotion allows the individual to be aware of the different dangers surrounding him or her allowing us to react properly to threats. This feeling also allows animals to accomplish things they might never be able to do otherwise. Cannon (1970, p. 226) states that
“under the impulse of fear also, men have been known to achieve extraordinary feats of running and leaping.” He uses the example of boy who once leaped over a huge wall while being pursued by a savage animal; a wall that he could clearly not jump over this wall in normal circumstances. Thus, fear is useful to both humans and animals when it comes to protecting themselves against danger.
Fear is Universal
In other animals, fear can have some similarities with human beings. In fact, animals are afraid of their predators, just as humans can be afraid of people around them for distinct reasons. King (1922, pp. 2-3), explains:
“look at the people you run up against in the course of a few hours. Everyone is living or working in fear. The mother is afraid for her children. The father is afraid for his business. The clerk is afraid for his job. The worker is afraid of his boss or his competitor.” Who is to say that, like humans, animals can't be found to be afraid for their significant others or have similar worries?! Pansep and Biven (2012, p. 48), state that humans, as well as other animals, seek the comfort of groups for safety when experiencing fear. However, unlike our animal counterparts, they argue that human beings have the ability to
hide their fears more effectively than other other animals. According to Jasper, Semin and Smeets (2014), human beings, as well as other animals can recall and associate fears with olfactory and audio-visual sources. In fact, their experiment showed that animals can recognize threats by smelling, hearing or seeing something in their surrounding, which is another similarity between human beings and other animals.
An experiment conducted by Erickson, Deal and Jacobson (2014) shows that the incapacity of young children to react to
fear conditioning is due to
“an inability of younger subjects to form a representation of the context due to an immature hippocampus.” However, many animals living in the wild are proven to be born with the ability of responding to fear conditioning, meaning that as they face fear for the first time of their life, their brain is developed enough to store that memory and recall it whenever facing the same threat. Another study by Tierney and Connolly (2013) show how there is an inherent
biological fear of snakes in humans. It also covers the fact that snakes (and other animals) use force to overcome fear towards other animals. For example, if a bear is afraid of a human, chances are the bear will attack the human. On the other hand, if a group of people is confronted with a bear, they will probably use force and power against the bear to neutralize it, which is another similarity in the response to fear by humans and other animals. (Tierney, & Connolly, 2013) Humans and other animals
react to fear and overcome this feeling similarly. The actions taken when experiencing fear is always based on the same pattern, regardless of the animal involved.
Fear is Healthy
Though several conclusions can be made in understanding what happens in the brain of an animal when facing fear, one thing is for certain. Fear is clearly felt by all animals including humans. The fight-or-flight response can be linked to any situation involving fear, concerning either a wild animal, a human being or a domestic animal. However, what differs us from one animal to another is our ability to respond to fear conditioning. Thus, perhaps Karen Thompson (2012), says it best:
"Just as the most nuanced stories in literature are often the richest, so too might our subtlest fears be the truest. Read in the right way, our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination, a kind of everyday clairvoyance, a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how that future will play out. Properly read, our fears can offer us something as precious as our favorite works of literature: a little wisdom, a bit of insight and a version of that most elusive thing -- the truth." In other words,
seize the day!
References
Ansbacher, H., & Ansbacher, R. (Eds.) (1956). The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Blum, G. S., (1966). Psychodynamics: The Science of Unconscious Mental Forces. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Cannon, W. B., (1970). Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage. 2nd ed. Maryland: McGrath Publishing Company.
Erickson, K., Deal, A. & Jacobson, R., (2014). Contextual and Auditory Fear Conditioning
Continue to Emerge During the Periweaning Period in rats. PLoS ONE. 9 (6), pp.1-10
Jasper, H. B., Semin, G. R. & Smeets, M., (2014). I Can See, Hear, and Smell Your Fear: Comparing Olfactory and Audiovisual Media in Fear Communication. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 143, pp.825-834
King, B., (1922). The Conquest of Fear. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.
Panksepp, J. & Biven, L., (2012). The Archeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Nemotions. New York: W. W. Northon & Company, Inc..
Stone, M., (2013). Alfred Adler on the dynamics of fear. Journal of Individual
Psychology. 69, pp. 55-65
Tierney, K. & Connolley, M. K. , (2013). A Review of the Evidence for a Biological
Basis for Snakes Fear in Humans. Psychological Record. 63, pp.919-928
Walker, Karen. (2012). What Fear Can Teach Us. TedTalks.About The Author
Laurie St-Pierre is presently studying at
Champlain College Lennoxville located in Quebec, Canada.
Exploring Fear in Animals and Humans was written as part of an assignment for
The Beast Within in the
Department of Humanities.
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