Analyzing and deconstructing fear to rationally subdue or ignore it when appropriate.
Have you ever imagined jumping off a building? How about jumping out a window? As you think about jumping, what height feels comfortable without a significant fear of being injured? How far do you think you could jump before it would kill you?
I’d be sort of okay with jumping from a second story window and think I’d be fine as long as I landed right. When I startled an intruder in my living room, he jumped out through a second story window and almost hit the ground running. Then again, I was holding a gun AND he landed on grass… maybe that’s not the best example.
The fear Nazis out there are fond of making declarations of fearlessness in the face of any danger. Most people roll their eyes at such claims, brushing them off as misguided attempts to display courage. And for the most part, people who claim not to have any fear are just showing off. However, it may be true that some people have relatively low instances of fear. They’re rather rare for one simple reason… The genes of people with no fear get weeded out by evolution.
The rest of us have genes that give us a relatively healthy level of fear. Unfortunately, many of our fears are antiquated. Sure, they may still have some value, but the level of fear we have for various things is not correlated with the things most likely to cause us harm in our modern world.
Most Common Fears
From Forbes.com (in no particular order):
- Heights
- Speaking In Public
- Bugs (especially Spiders, Scorpions, Bees)
- Water
- Snakes
- Bridges
- Mice
- Bats
- Public Transportation
- Storms
- Closed Spaces
- Tunnels
- Crowds
Heights
Let’s think about heights again. What’s the real fear? There’s a cliched quip about a fear of heights that’s something like, “I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling”. This is an attempt to get at the underlying cause, but it can be deconstructed even farther. We’re not really afraid of falling or we’d never learn to walk. The root of the fear is high-speed impact with immovable objects.
Most people would experience some fear responses if perched on the ledge of a tall building. Hitting the ground from a 19 story fall is roughly equivalent to smashing into a solid brick wall while driving 75 mph. Compare that to the impact speed of jumping from the roof of a 2 story building at about 25 mph. To put that in perspective, the highest recorded speed for a human is 29.8 mph. So, while jumping off a building of that height may cause serious injury or death, it is a human scale measurement that our evolutionary ancestors would have been comfortable with.
The important thing is this: We experience a fear of heights because of the implied speed of impact, but we really do fear heights because of the context of height. For the vast majority of people, 75 mph is a comfortable driving speed. The consequences of impact are similar to the fall. However, most of us would keep on driving happily, but back up from a ledge.
This can be examined on an even deeper level by comparing the sensation and reaction of riding in a modern, well-sealed car compared to a motorcycle. Is it really high wind that we’re afraid of? Maybe the higher noise levels in an unsealed environment?
We didn’t experience speed in our evolutionary past. For our tribal ancestors, the only way to achieve high-speeds was to fall from great heights. Unfortunately, this was not an experience one could repeatedly experiment with. There was no way to feel rapid acceleration or deceleration either. Therefore, we never had an opportunity to evolve a rational fear of speed based on speed itself. We instead evolved a fear of ledges and vertical distances.
The Holy Trinity of Fear
Rational fears generally evolved in response to one of thee following three negative forces. Comparing them to the list above does result in a mixture of various combinations. And of course it will vary by person.
- Death
- Social Degradation
- Unpredictability
It’s easy to see why people (and other animals) would involve a fear of things that can kill us. The other two are intuitive from our experiences, but not quite so easy to explain.
The fear of negative social feedback includes layers of avoiding the punishment of violating social rules (including physical punishment and death). It also has reproductive implications as the potential to lower group status increases linearly with the size of the group. Further, the communication of social foibles to those not in attendance increases geometrically with the size of the group. Social status is a huge factor in attracting high value mates so this concern can be amplified. Even the most seasoned speakers and performers talk about being nervous in the initial moments of interacting with a new group.
The unpredictability factor functions as an amplifier of any existing negative potential. Unidentified creatures moving unpredictably messes with our threat analysis systems. Identified threats moving unpredictably amplify our threat analysis systems. Group dynamics also implies an increased level of unpredictability. There are other nuances, but understanding that unpredictability is the root cause of fear is probably going far enough.
Don’t Be a Crazy Person (WARNING: This may be a a little too close to self-development pap)
Crazy people are dominated by the disconnect between their behaviors in relation to inputs. In this sense, our antiquated minds have the potential to make us all crazy within the modern context. We may react strongly to things that were persistent threats to our ancestors, but are no longer threats today. Standing against a glass wall looking down 100 stories may induce a fear response (or vertigo) despite the relative safety. Driving at high speeds may feel perfectly safe despite traffic fatality statistics being much more serious than accidentally falling out of your apartment statistics.
I’m not going to analyze each fear in its modern context for you. But for every fear you know you have a tendency to experience and every fear you experience in the future, thinking about whether or not your response is rational in modern times is worthwhile.
Other People Are Crazy
This is also extremely useful in examining fears implied or communicated by others. Fear spreads easily. Fear is so well known to cause reactions in people AND so well studied, that fear easy for others to employ it as a method of applying stultifying control.
Is it rational for a mother to fear terrorists are going to harm her child in rural South Dakota?
It’s also useful to examine the converse.
Is it rational for an employee in a company to feel job security? Is the wall of information between company owners and employees eerily soothing?
Some people let fear completely dominate their lives. Others let fear impact them in more subtle ways. Since our brains are flawed by effective anachronism, it makes sense to bend the rules of fear to our advantage.
Earl
1 month ago
Calling some fears irrational would be an understatement. While I'm not afraid of traveling to 'dangerous' regions of the world, I absolutely run away whenever I see a cockroach, even though I've now seen millions over the years and not one of them has attacked me or tried to poison my beer.
And oddly enough, as I was reading this post, a friend of mine sent me a text saying that she had called the police because she heard noises on the second floor of her house. She was terrified. It turned out to be a fan.
My recent post Jump Off a Cliff, Stick a Crayon in Your Mouth & FLYYYYY!
Andrew
1 month ago
I wonder if there’s any research on evolved beer defense mechanisms in humans. Most people seem pretty protective of it. Lord knows I am.
The “creepy crawly” type fears are weird. I mean… we know that they’re basically harmless, but they tend to trip people out even when they’re identified and not moving in an unpredictable manner. I’d guess it has something to do with our fears being evolved to account for classes of creatures… or general shapes and sizes rather than the colors or specific traits we use to distinguish them.
Bees are the worst for me.
Ash
1 month ago
You would have loved being with me in Costa Rica. First, I arrived back to my studio apartment, located within a hotel, to find one of the cleaning women in tears. Apparently, her uncle died that night from a massive African bee attack of 2,000+ stings. Then, one week later, there was an African (aka "killer bee") hive that manifested itself rapidly (and randomly) right outside of my sliding glass door, on my balcony. They were everywhere, and the firefighters had to come to kill them.
You know, I'd be pretty pissed if I died from some little bug.
Anthony Feint
1 month ago
I used to be a really good climber until I had a major fall from a height and ended up in a pretty bad way. I wasn't scared of heights then, but I am now. I can' t really go climbing anymore. Im not sure if this is a rational fear or not. But my fear evolved within a matter of seconds!
My recent post The Art of Zenware, and Why You Should be Using It
Andrew
1 month ago
Yeah… Learned fears operate on an entirely different level in general. When there’s a trigger on something that’s a fear that’s typically evolved, it probably makes it worse than it is for other people on average… even though you didn’t feel it in the first place. Like… there’s a mental dam that’s holding the fear back for your entire life, but then it gets shattered, and all hell breaks loose in your mind. In reference to the fear at least. I’m totally just thinking out loud though.
@brandoncreates
1 month ago
You discuss the holy trinity of fear, of which two hold many people back from achieving their greatest goals and dreams. I'm not going to get all Tony Robbins here, or anything, but I think people fear the unpredictability of living an unusual life, of creating a business, of doing something different. And the fear of failure is really more a fear of social degradation. We're not so much horrified of failing as we are of other people finding out about it. Overcoming these fears of social degradation – when the cause is merely a failure – and of unpredictability in our uncommon choices is key to creating a better, freer life.
Andrew
1 month ago
Totally. It’s cool how the principles can be applied in a lot of different directions. I wasn’t even thinking about things like starting a business or breaking out of cultural norms, but you’re right, it works for that too.
Jesse51
1 month ago
How about the fear that marketing, advertising and the media place on us in the good old USA. Traveling in Ireland a few years ago back when the bird flu was first going to ravage the world I watched a news broadcast about a case of BF found in London. It was dismissed as not a big concern – story over. After returning to the states about a week later the same story made it to our newspaper. It was practically reported as an "Oh My God The World Is Going To End event. Today, we know the rest of the bird flu story.
Another "fear" is that I won't look as good as the guy on the magazine cover if I don't do this workout, take this supplement, hold my mouth right while doing dead lifts, etc, etc, etc. Nope, I probably won't ever look that good. Not supposed to. Don't really care. I don't have an airbrush following me around to make it so.
Recently, my daughter returned from a 4 month trip to Chile. We were talking about her experience and she commented that one of the most interesting things she learned was that other countries were not scary like they are often made out to be. She met great people, saw cool places and learned to speak the language well. She came back with a great experience and feeling about the people and places she visited in spite of the fact she was mugged while she was there. She said, "you know Dad, I walked down a street I shouldn't have. It could have happened anywhere". Backtrack 30 years. This small town Southern boy visited NYC and LA in his early 20's looking for job opportunities. Because of the things I had heard based on things that people say I went with not fear, but a high level of apprehension. OK, it was really a bit of fear. So what I found were big cities with high energy levels that were a hell of a lot of fun. Again, go fearlessly to where ever and perhaps into whatever, watch your topknot and use common sense. Stuff can happen anywhere but probably won't.
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions – Alfred Adler
Andrew
1 month ago
Yeah, the imposed fears that you start off with are perhaps the worst. It’s one thing to overcome a fear of water or heights… That isn’t easy, but they’re just there… Known and stationary as far as their threat to us. Social fears that are utilized as tactics are… umm… scary. The messages can be specifically designed to slip by our rational judgement centers… or even distort them. That’s why I find it important to try to be especially attuned to fear. In a sense, it’s realizing the fear, then tracing it back and analyzing it. Because… If we rely on Hemmingway’s “bullshit detectors” to filter out things that are ill intended use the fear response as an affirmation, we can easily be lead astray.
Earl above mentioned the notions of ‘dangerous’ areas too. I’ve had a lot of conversations about that and basically reached the same conclusions you mention. Yet every time the conversation comes up, I’m continually surprised how often people don’t get the analogy that bad parts in (insert city of your choice) are like bad parts of other cities… in general. Certainly, all cities and cultures and moments in time are not equal, but… The tendency for some to assume the worst is strong. It’s the unpredictability thing again… from a completely different angle.
Jenny
1 month ago
Love this Andrew, especially this line: The genes of people with no fear get weeded out by evolution.
Very interesting analysis. I often find that I'm only afraid of things until I actually try them. The zip line at the team building exercise is scary as hell until I go down once. Then, I wish we could go a second round. The big slide at Wet 'n' Wild made me want to vomit until I tried it (because the guys I went with wouldn't let me access my locker until I went down it). Then, it wasn't so bad. I see a similarity with the car analogy. If I had only been in a car going 75 mph once or twice (as I have only been in buildings 20+ stories high a handful of times) I would likely be much more afraid of driving (or riding).
Love the thought-provoking read.
My recent post I’ll Join Your Group if You Take My Pictcha
Andrew
1 month ago
Hey Jenny, for some reason, I didn’t get a notification of your comment earlier!
Yeah, I like that line too. Fear is too often brushed off as weakness or some sort of defect. That denies our fundamental humanity and ignores reality at the same time. In such dismissive conditions, it’s hard to have a meaningful discussion or get many results.
It sounds like most of the fears you mentioned can be lumped into the ‘unpredictability’category. “Fear of the unknown” is probably another way to put it. Totally normal.
Walter
1 month ago
In the context of human survival, fear made it possible the continuance of our species. However, we live in progressive times where the threat to our survival has greatly reduced. This makes fear more of a handicap than benefit. Awareness on our part is necessary in order to anticipate the call of fear. Though we cannot get it out of our system we can make an effort in resisting its unreasonable suggestions.
The moment we can handle our fear, the more we can unleash our true capabilities.
Andrew MacPherson
1 month ago
I mostly agree. If fear is the enemy, the more we understand it, the more we’ll be able to conquer it.
Rather than the pure survival aspect of fear, it’s also useful to examine the impact reproductive selection has had on our minds. This comes into play particularly in social settings… even in societies that don’t worry so much about survival on a day-to-day basis.