We may not say it aloud but everyone fears. The kind and extent differ but everyone experiences fear.
As an emotional and a physical response, fear is real. It is a natural and primal emotional reaction hardwired into human psychology. In the rise of humans to the top of the food chain, fear was a crucial survival tactic. It made us flee or freeze in the face of danger when other less evolved species didn’t have such a high-level flight or freeze response induced by fear. We have moved out of the savage plains of Savanah into the comfort of the 21st Century. Yet the same fear haunts us all.
Fear becomes problematic when it rules our very existence. When most of what we do every day is out of fear and not of free will, fear becomes a problem that needs a solution. If left unaddressed, it will take us through a rabbit hole, and even possibly to our death.
One piece of data shows the scale of the problem: According to the World Health Organization, nearly a billion people suffer from some form of mental disorder. That is one in eight people. But what has fear to do with this alarming number? Here is what: generalized fear is often the root cause of all mental disorders.
If you suffer from any sort of mental disorder, you should look at your fears. Because, you might just uncover the root of your disorder.
By looking at one of the most definitive experiments in psychology, this article will show you how fear develops in us and what we can do to relegate fear into a third-tier emotional response rather than the top position it holds in most of our lives.
The Little Albert Experiment
It was an experiment on human psychology. It involved a 9-month old infant, a white rat, some other animals, a hammer and a steel bar, and a behavioral psychologist. Though shrouded in mystery and controversy, the one-of-a-kind experiment yielded gold nuggets in human psychology.
The infant was named “Albert”. The psychologist was John B. Watson. The place was John Hopkins University and the year was 1920.
At the beginning of the experiment, Albert was exposed to animals, Santa Clause mask and even fire. The white rat climbed over little Albert’s little lap, a capuchin monkey dangled in front of the child and a rabbit hopped around in turn. Next, the researchers brought a dog in front of the child and even burning flames were brought in front of the child. The researcher even wore Santa Claus mask. Through all this display, little Albert showed no sign of fear.
The second round was when the real experiment took place. The researchers brought the same white rat to the child but this time this time the presence of the rat was accompanied by a hammer striking a steel bar. The loud noise scared little Albert who started crying. This procedure was repeated. Albert developed fear of the white rat.
But that was not it. From thereon, Albert was afraid of the rat even when there was no noise of hammer striking a steel bar. Albert’s fear did not stop there. He became scared of everything: the little capuchin monkey, the dog, the rabbit and even the Santa Claus mask. The strange thing was he showed fear of these animals even though he never experienced the loud noise of hammer and steel bar with any of these animals.
The technical term is “association”. Before the experiment, he had no reason to fear the white rat or any other animals. But when the white rat was accompanied by the loud noise, he associated the loud noise with the white rat. For him, the white rat was the loud, scary noise. Not just that, everything else he was shown was associated with the loud noise which resulted in arousing fear in him.
The Power of Association
In human learning, association is a powerful tool. We can easily learn a new subject by associating something new with something old. Think analogy.
Similarly, the Little Albert Experiment showed us that we can also learn fear by association. And the key words are “learning” and “association”.
Little Albert’s fear of loud noise was inherent. The fear of loud noise is one of the universal fears. His fear of white rat was not. But he learnt fear by associating the loud noise with the white rat. He then automatically associated other animals and stuffs with the loud noise.
This experiment showed conclusively that fear can be learnt and fear can be taught. Most of us are afraid of some things: darkness, spiders, snakes, clowns. But where we born with the fear for these? No. We learnt to fear them. The technical term for this is “classical conditioning”.
The Universal Fears
Researchers agree that only two types of fear are inherent: fear of loud noise and fear of falling down. Then there are also other fears that is a part of the human condition: fear of extinction, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation and ego-death, what Dr Karl Albrecht calls the five basic fears.
If we, however, try to list out even the most common phobias, the list is endless. The fear of flowers is one of the most prominent phobias, for instance. If we can name a thing, you can bet there is someone who is afraid of it.
But from our individual experiences, we know that fear is far more prevalent and pervasive than we can name names. As a species, we are a jittery ball of fear. We may not show it, but most of our thoughts, emotions and behaviors are fueled by our fears. That is because we have learnt to associate what we fear with one of those inherent fears. We are conditioned.
Take the fear of public speaking, for instance. The stage fright consistently features at the top of what people fear the most. Unreasonable as it sounds, the fear of public speaking is ahead of fear of death. In other words, if people had a choice, they would die rather than get on a stage.
How is this possible? We are born with the fear of criticism and rejection but not with the fear of public speaking. The reason we abhor public speaking is that we learnt to associate public speaking with criticism and rejection. And there is a reason why the fear of rejection is real.
In our evolutionary journey, when humans lived in small tribes in hostile environment, it was important for tribe members to stay together. The tribe provided safety. If a member was thrown out of the tribe, it meant a certain death for the outcast. There is no wonder why the fear of rejection immobilizes most of us, even though we know our lives won’t be in danger if someone criticizes us.
How We Learn Fear
Here are a few facts to consider.
Fact #1: Fear is real. It manifests as a strong emotion with accompanying physiological reactions such as raised heartbeat, choked voice or sweaty palms.
Fact #2: There is only a handful of fears we are born with.
Fact#3: We learn to fear things by associating certain people, animals, stuffs, sounds, images and ideas with one or multiple inherent fears.
The question then is how do we learn all the fears that we have. We learn some of them through experience. This was true in the case of Little Albert.
But we learn a vast majority of our fears from the society: our parents and families, friends, popular culture, even gossips and side comments. Unfortunately, they are most often a result of unconscious process. We learn them without even realizing we learnt them.
Think of all the fear tactics used by television and commercials to keep us glued or program us to buy certain products. There are a million ways the society perpetuates fear. In this process, we are often a passive recipient; fears poured into us.
How to Manage Fears
You learn fear through association. The only way to unlearn fear is through disassociation. This is a three-step process.
The first step is to identify the association between what you fear and your inherent, natural fears. Define what you are afraid of and what fear it triggers in you. In other word, what stimulates your fear. Bring your fears into your conscious domain, your awareness. Most often, our fear and anxiety kicks in but barely care to think about why we fear.
For example, say you fear giving presentations or participating in group discussions. Which fear does it trigger in you? Does the thought of giving a presentation trigger your fear of criticism and rejection? Or does it trigger the fear of extinction, as if your audience will prey on you?
The second step is to disassociate your presentation from your fear of rejection or death. If you think about it, your giving a presentation – however horrible it goes – will never result in your group kicking you out, and they will definitely not be preying upon you. It is just a presentation. Often, we think in terms of worst-case scenario and the worst-case scenarios are not that bad at all.
The third step is to repeat the process of identifying the association and then disassociating what you fear from your fear. This is not easy especially when it comes to the most pervasive fears. But if you want to be free from fears, the long-term solution is to unlearn them through a process of disassociation.