All of the ways we behave in the face of fear function to help us stay safe (Adolphs, 2013). When we face something threatening, we try to respond adaptively. However, if those thoughts come up so frequently or are so difficult to ignore that they make it hard for somebody to go about their daily life, then they may need professional help coping with that fear. To take an example, most people who are about to have surgery done will have some fearful thoughts regarding negative outcomes. Psychologists also measure fear by looking at how frequent, intense, and long-lasting the thoughts are about the threatening event (Rachman et al., 1987). This high-alert response involves many changes in your body. Parts of your brain that focus on detecting threat go on high alert, telling the rest of your body to flood with hormones and prepare you to react effectively (LeDoux, 2003). Psychologists and other scientists, however, think of a fear as a response your body makes to something threatening, with the goal of defending you against it (Johnson, 2016). When something frightens you, your conscious experience of it may be a combination of physical symptoms (more on these in a moment) and fearful thoughts. What Is Fear in Psychology? (Research Findings) This range of responses makes sense if we think about it for a moment: if fear is the belief that you are in danger, a fully opposite experience would not just involve the absence of fear, but also believing that something good will happen. Many wise people have contemplated what the opposite of fear is, and they have generally chosen something such as faith, hope, courage, confidence, or trust (Gray, 2021 Konstan, 2005 Piscitelli & Perrella, 2017). We usually think of fear as an emotion (Thomson, 1979), but as we will see, scientists also define fear according to the thoughts, behaviors, and changes in our bodies that happen when we feel fear (Buck, 1984 Ekman, 1977). Whether the threat is an upcoming performance review at work, the steep slope of a mountain you’ve chosen to ski down, or the sound of footsteps behind you at night, fear is a full-body, stressful experience of anticipating something bad might happen. Put simply, fear is the experience we have when we feel threatened (Adolphs, 2013).
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