Page 109 - Advanced Biblical Counseling Student Textbook

Learning Fear
People can be afraid of almost anything – “afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of
each other,” observed Ralph Waldo Emerson. The “politics of fear” builds upon people’s fear – fear of
terrorists, fear of immigrants, fear of criminals. Why so many fears? Behaviorists John B. Watson and
Rosalie Rayner showed that infants can learn to fear furry objects associated with frightening noises.
When infants begin to crawl, they learn from brief falls and near-falls – and become increasingly afraid
of heights. Through such conditioning, the short list of naturally painful and frightening events can
multiply into a long list of human fears – fear of driving or flying, fear of mice or cockroaches, fear of
closed or open spaces, fear of failure or success, fear of another race or nation. 168

Learning by observation extends the list. Susan Mineka sought to explain why nearly all monkeys reared
in the wild fear snakes, yet lab-reared monkeys do not. Surely, most wild monkeys do not actually suffer
snake bites. Do they learn their fear through observation? To find out, Mineka experimented with six
monkeys reared in the wild (all strongly fearful of snakes) and their lab-reared offspring (virtually none
of which feared snakes). After repeatedly observing their parents or peers refusing to reach for food in
the presence of a snake, the younger monkeys developed a similar strong fear of snakes. When retested
three months later, their learned fear persisted. Humans likewise learn fears by observing others. This
suggests that our fears include the fears we learn from our parents and friends. 169

The Biology of Fear
One key to fear learning lies in the amygdala, that
limbic system neural center deep in the brain. The
amygdala plays a key role in associating various
emotions, including fear, with certain situations. In
animal research, rabbits learn to react with fear to a
tone that predicts an impending small shock – unless
their amygdala is damaged. If rats have their
amygdala deactivated by a drug that blocks the
strengthening of neural connections, they, too, show
no fear learning.
170

The amygdala is similarly involved in human fears. If
an experimenter repeatedly blasts people with a
blaring horn after showing a blue slide, they will begin
to react emotionally to the slide (as measured by the
electricity conducted by their perspiring skin). If they
have suffered damage to the nearby hippocampus,
they still show the emotional reaction – an implicit memory – but they won’t be able to remember why.
If they have instead suffered amygdala damage, they will consciously remember the conditioning but
will show no emotional effect of it. Patients who have lost use of their amygdala are unusually trusting
of scary-looking people. 171

168 Ibid.
169 Ibid.
170 Ibid.
171 Ibid.

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