Fear

The well-known psychologist and physician A. I. Zakharov defined fear as “an affective (emotionally sharp) reflection in the consciousness of a specific threat to a person’s life and well-being” ^[3] . He noted that fear is based on the instinct of self-preservation , has a protective character and is accompanied by physiological changes in higher nervous activity , which is reflected in the frequency of the pulse and respiration, blood pressure indices, secretion of gastric juice ^[4] .

In the theory of differential emotions of K. Isard, fear is attributed to basic emotions , that is, it is an innate emotional process , with a genetically defined physiological component, a strictly defined mimic manifestation and a specific subjective experience ^[5] . The causes of fear are considered real or imagined danger . Fear mobilizes the body to implement avoidance behavior , runaway ^[6] .

Fear in the psychology of communication

Fear as a basic human emotion, signaling the state of danger, depends on many external, internal, innate or acquired causes. Cognitively constructed causes of fear: a feeling of loneliness , rejection, depression , a threat to self-esteem , a sense of inevitable failure, a sense of their own inadequacy. Consequences of fear: emotional states of uncertainty, strong nervous tension , which induces an individual to escape, to seek protection , to save. The main functions of fear and the accompanying emotional states: signal , protective, adaptive , search ^[7] .

Phobias

Mental disorders in which some situations or objects that are conditionally not dangerous cause alarm and fear are called “ phobias ” ^[8] .

Fear and anxiety

AI Zakharov noted that anxiety and fear are united by a common feeling of anxiety ^[3] . But, unlike fear, anxiety is “an emotionally sharpened sense of the impending threat” ^[3] . Most often, anxiety arises as the expectation of an event that is difficult to predict and which may threaten unpleasant consequences ^[3] .

Fear classification

Allocate normal (natural or age) and pathological levels of fear. The usual fear is short-lived, reversible, disappears with age, does not affect a person’s deep value orientations, does not significantly affect his character, behavior and relationships with other people ^[4] . The pathological level of fear manifests itself in extreme, dramatic forms of expression ( horror , emotional shock , shock) or in a protracted, intrusive, difficult to reverse course, involuntariness, that is, complete lack of control by consciousness, adverse effects on character, interpersonal relations and adaptation of a person to social reality ^[9] . Another classification is the division of fears into real and imaginary, acute and chronic, and, moreover, if real and acute fears are associated with a specific situation, then imaginary and chronic fears with personality characteristics ^[10] .

It was the awareness of the end of its existence, the rougher, the fear of death, that ritualized the life of primitive man . Ritual, leveling fears, allowed to accumulate cultural information , improving the methods of its preservation. Ways, regulators and the results of human existence have changed. Fear played a significant role in the appearance of the state . We can say that one of the factors for creating communities was a complex of fears. The consequence of this complex was the desire to unite in order to fight against the dangers together.

If we talk about religions that occupy (and occupy) such a significant place in a person's life, then in each of them, fear also plays a key role. ^[1] And here, fear rises to the metaphysical level and includes not only the problem of life and death, but also the moral aspect. Death itself becomes a kind of boundary, a place of transition to another world. And how a person has lived his life depends on what the other world will be for him. In this case, the source of fear that is represented is not in objective reality (that is, not in the surrounding world), but outside of direct cognition. In a sense, it can be considered that fear had a great influence on the development of such a criterion as morality .

Fear occupies a special place in art and literature, such as: the genre of the Gothic novel (or the Gothic story), the genre of horror (horror) in literature, cinema and video games . Epic and mythological folklore , folk superstitions are one of the most frequently used sources for these works. Other sources include social phobias that were common in one or another era. [2]

Fear is a powerful sociocultural regulative and deserves the closest attention of modern humanities in general, and especially cultural knowledge. ^[eleven]

Animals also experience fear. In the animal world, fear is “an emotion based on past negative experience, which is of great importance for the survival of an individual” ^[12] . For the study of fear in animals using the conditioned-reflex reaction of fear, which is characterized by the following ^[13] :

• Occurs when presenting conditional stimuli, previously combined with painful irritation;
• In the course of the conditioned reflex reaction of fear, the animal freezes, he has vegetative and hormonal changes;
• The conditioned-reflex reaction in an animal is able to fade with time, but it can spontaneously recover after extinction. This indicates that the memory of fear is preserved, and only behavioral manifestations of fear are fading.

The experiments conducted on animals (rats) by N. B. Saulskaya, N. V. Fofonova and P. V. Sudorgina showed that animals subjected to the elaboration and realization of the conditioned-reflex reaction of fear, one day after working show a reduced (compared to with control animals) research activity in the new chamber ^[14] . Such a decrease in activity is due to the fact that the animal becomes more cautious due to the negative experience ^[14] . Moreover, in animals subjected to the development of a conditioned-reflex fear reaction, a day after the experiment (it was accompanied by a discharge of electric current) when a new stimulus appeared, attention and fading were stronger than in control animals ^[14] .

Fear in an animal goes through three stages: emergence, expression and extinction. The expression of fear in experimental animals (rats, mice and rabbits) is held in the form of a grip reaction ^[15] .

Physiologically, the amygdala plays a decisive role in the emergence of all three stages ^[16] . The destruction of the basolateral tonsil in rats led to a disturbance in the expression of fear (a fading reaction to a new threatening stimulus — a leather ball covered with cat hair) ^[16] .

The rate of extinction of fear in an animal can be regulated by introducing certain substances into the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala. In scientific literature, it has been proven that the introduction of muscimol into the amygdala leads to a decrease in the expression of conditioned reflex fear in an animal (both in the form of hiding and in the form of a change in the frequency of respiration and heartbeat) ^[17] .

Scientists of the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences I. V. Pavlova and M. P. Rysakov came to the conclusion that the introduction of muscimol and bicuculline tonsil into the basolateral nucleus before extinguishing fear led to an acceleration of the process of extinction in multiplying rats, without affecting the little demanding rats ^[18] . Experiments were performed on 33 male rats ^[19] . After rejection, two groups of animals were distinguished: rats with little hiding (16 individuals) and multi-hiding rats (14 individuals) ^[20] .

In everyday life or in emergency situations, a person has to overcome the dangers threatening his life, which causes fear, i.e. short-term or long-term emotional process, generated by real or perceived danger, alarm. Fear usually causes discomfort, but it can also be a signal for protection, since the main goal facing man is to stay alive. However, it should be noted that the response to fear can be thoughtless or unconscious actions of a person caused by panic - a manifestation of strong anxiety . Also, fear shortens life expectancy ^[22] .

The flow of the emotion of fear in different situations in different people can vary significantly, both in strength and in influence on behavior.

Fear can manifest itself in the form of an excited or depressed emotional state. A very strong fear (for example, horror ) is often accompanied precisely by a depressed state. In addition to the general term "fear", the terms "anxiety", " fright ", "panic", "phobias", etc. are used for various similar in nature negative emotional states. For example, short-term and severe fear caused by a sudden strong irritant is called “fright”, and long-term, mild, diffuse fear is called “anxiety”.

Mental disorders such as phobias can lead to frequent and intense human experience of fear. Phobia is an obsessive, irrational fear associated with a particular object or situation that a person cannot cope with on their own.

Some philosophers, especially those who approach this phenomenon from a purely moral standpoint, consider fear to be a harmful emotion with bad consequences. Other philosophers, especially those who view fear as a predominantly biological phenomenon, on the contrary, consider this state to be useful, since it notifies of dangerous situations. Fear is also understood as one of the possible states of human existence ^[23] . These points of view are not mutually exclusive, as well as the sensation of pain , ensures the self-preservation of the individual , and becomes unproductive or dangerous only in the most intense and long-lasting manifestations.

Childhood (age) fears arise at a very early age and are temporary. Childhood fear is normal if it lasts no more than 3-4 weeks ^[24] . The causes of children's fears are the rich imagination of the child, negative experiences (for example, a dog bite can cause fear of the dogs), as well as suggestion from both adults and other children. Children's fear is often caused by phenomena that do not frighten adults: fairytale heroes, darkness, etc. Especially a lot of fear in children 5 - 8 years. Children's fears are divided into natural and social ^[25] . The earliest are natural fears that appear in the preschool years. A child under the age of 1 year is afraid of loud noise, strangers, as well as a change of scenery ^[26] . Among the children of the older preschool and younger school age the fear of death is widespread. In adolescence, social fears prevail - failure, condemnation, punishment, hopelessness and the impossibility of self-realization, and others ^[27] . To eliminate children's fears apply art therapy , fairy tale therapy and other methods.

Fear can be described in various terms depending on the severity: fear , horror , panic .

Professor Yu. V. Shcherbatykh proposed his own classification of fears ^[28] . He divides all fears into three groups:

• biological,
• social,
• existential

The first group includes fears directly related to the threat to human life, the second represents fears and fears of changing their social status, the third group of fears is related to the very essence of a person, characteristic of all people. Social fears are caused by situations that can carry a threat not to the life or health of a person, but to his social status or self-esteem of the person (fear of public speaking, social contacts, responsibility, etc.). Existential fears are associated with the intellect and are caused by reflections on issues affecting the problems of life, death and the very existence of man. It is the fear of death, before time, before the meaninglessness of human existence, etc.

Based on this principle, the fear of fire belongs to the first category, the fear of public speaking - to the second, and the fear of death - to the third. Meanwhile, there are intermediate forms of fear on the verge of two sections. These include, for example, the fear of disease . On the one hand, the disease has a biological nature (pain, damage, suffering), but on the other hand, it has a social nature (switching off from normal activities, separation from the team, decline in income, dismissal from work, poverty, etc.). Therefore, this fear is on the border of groups 1 and 2 of fear, the fear of depth (when bathing) is on the border of groups 1 and 3, the fear of losing loved ones is on the border of groups 2 and 3, etc. In fact, in each fear there is or to a different extent, all three components are present, but one of them is dominant.

It is human nature to be afraid of dangerous animals, situations and natural phenomena. Fear arising from this is genetic or reflex. In the first case, the reaction to danger is recorded at the genetic level, in the second (based on its own negative experience) it is recorded at the level of nerve cells. In both cases, it makes sense to check the usefulness of such reactions with the help of reason and logic. It is possible that these reactions have lost their useful value and only prevent a person from living happily. For example, it makes sense to be wary of snakes, and it is foolish to be afraid of spiders ; You can rightly fear the lightning , but not the thunder , which can not cause harm . If such fears cause inconvenience to a person, you can try to restructure your reflexes .

Fears arising in situations that are hazardous to life and health, have a protective function, and therefore are useful. Fears of medical manipulations can be harmful to health, as they prevent a person from making a diagnosis or treatment in time.

The patient, whose amygdala was destroyed due to the Urbach-Vite disease , showed complete absence of fear ^{[29] [30] [31]} .

Two neural paths of fear

The development of a sense of fear is determined by two neural paths, which, ideally, function simultaneously. The first of them, responsible for the development of basic emotions, responds quickly and is accompanied by a large number of errors. The second responds more slowly, but more accurately ^[32] .

Fast track

The first path allows us to quickly respond to signs of danger, but often triggers as a false alarm. The second way allows us to more accurately assess the situation and respond to the danger more accurately. In this case, the feeling of fear, initiated by the first way, is blocked by the functioning of the second way, which evaluates certain signs of danger as unrealistic.

In the first path (low, short, subcortical), the emotional stimulus , reflected in the sensitive nuclei of the visual mound , closes on the amygdal nuclei of the visual mound , causing an emotional response.

Long road

In the second way (high, long, cortical), the emotional stimulus, reflected in the sensory nuclei of the visual hillock, rises in the sensory regions of the cerebral cortex and is directed from them to the nuclei of the amygdala ( almond-shaped ) complex, forming an emotional response.

For phobias, the second way functions inadequately, which leads to the development of a feeling of fear for stimuli that do not carry danger.

The main problem of diseases caused by stress is the inability of patients to inhibit the memory of unpleasant events ^[33] . Therefore, in the treatment of diseases caused by long-term persistence of fear reactions, doctors use a procedure to extinguish the memory of fear (for example, they bring objects or situations causing fear to the patient in the absence of any threat) ^[33] .

Extinction is not forgetting fear. The differences in the extinction process are as follows ^[34] :

• During extinction, a new memory trace is formed;
• Extinguish is the result of a modified hierarchy of newly learned responses, when newly acquired behavior replaces a previously formed conditioned reflex .

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