Introduction
Fear is something that may vary from person to person; we all have our own fears. However, our fears are similar in the ways that our bodies are affected and ways in which our brains process fear. What happens when we are scared or fearful? There is a typical reaction of physical changes which are designed to maximize our chances of survival (Dozier 1998).
* Blood is diverted to large muscles such as the legs, providing maximum energy if needed for an escape
* This causes the blood to be drained from skin, giving the pale characteristic of a person who “looks like they’ve seen a ghost”
* Adrenaline is pumped to muscles and the bloodstream, the high amount of blood diverted through the body can cause fainting
* The digestive system contacts, non-essential systems may shut down
* Eyes widen and pupils expand, allowing clear vision of surroundings
It is recognized by many studying fears and phobias that certain fears are likely to have evolved along with humans for thousands of years, such as fear of the dark and fear of predatory or possibly venomous animals, but some fears do not seem to come from evolutionary advantages, such as fear of moths that do not pose any real threat to human lives (McNally 2012). In fact, if one searches enough, they could probably find someone who says they are afraid of just about anything in the world. So where do these fears come from and when do they become a problem in living our lives?
-Erin Lowe
Phobias
Phobias are different from simple fears in a few ways, though they do spring from fear in the first place. A phobia is usually diagnosed when the person affected either “overestimates the likelihood of the feared event’s occurrence, exaggerates how bad it would be if it did occur, or both” (McNally: 22). So a person with agoraphobia isn’t actually afraid of the crowds, but overestimates how likely it is that they will have a panic attack in front of a large group of people, making it more likely that they will indeed have a panic attack while in a public space.
Doctors and psychiatrists don’t just use the exaggerated feeling of fear of events to diagnose disordered fear. The first step in this is that the amount of fear or anxiety that a person has about an event, animal, object, or situation should be disproportionate to the significance of the threat. In addition, the fear, the reactions to it, or the actions taken to avoid it must not only be persistent and cause distress to an individual, but must also interfere with a person’s everyday life (McNally 2012). So for example a person could be diagnosed with a phobia of scorpions while living in the American Southwest, but the fear can become distant if they were to move to Michigan where scorpions aren’t endemic.
If fears can transform into phobias, and phobias can be crippling disorders that need professional treatment, why are there so many activities that we enjoy that scare us? Is it just for the thrill of feeling scared, or is it a way to cope with our own emotions and learn to control them? The rest of this exhibit strives to look at these questions, by examining a cross cultural human fear- the fear of death and the dead- and thrill seeking activities that play on these themes that people around the world take part in.
-Sonja Johnson
