Born to be Scared?

I said earlier that there is always another theory. In the case of fear, there is more than one, but I’ll just mention one. The very fact that there are common themes with fear has encouraged some theorists to speculate that fear might be hardwired from birth. One such approach suggests we are born with a predisposition to learn to fear some things quickly as a product of our ancestory. This preparedness theory, as it is known, was put forward by Martin Seligman (1971). The strength of the theory is that it doesn’t exclude learning as a possibility for acquiring fears, but it helps to explain why certain phobias are more common than others. As to whether our ancestors were really threatened by spiders, thunder, open spaces, etc, is purely speculative and if this is the case why aren’t we more scared of lions, tigers and things can really harm us?

Whenever I teach phobias I like to ask my class what their fears are. It usually starts with the more common fears like snakes, spiders, the dark, injections, and gradually moves into the rare but interesting variety. To spare blushes I won’t mention them here but if you’d care to share your phobias in the comments below I’m sure you’ll have a receptive and sympathetic audience.