Page Sec1:43 - Labyrint 2013 - English Edition

“Our fear centre sits in an area in the front
of the brain near the temple and is called
the amygdala. Studies that have been done
on people who lack an amygdala demon-
strate that they do not exhibit fear,” he says.
Flaten and Åsli say that people without an
amygdala realize that things are danger-
ous, but they do not feel fear. These
people fail to recognize fear in others.
“They can see that people are happy,
angry or upset, but they cannot recognize
fear and fright. It can be dangerous not to
be afraid. Individuals who have Urbach-
Wiethes syndrome, which can affect the
amygdala, rarely live into their old age,”
Flaten says.
Fear is important because it awakens our
survival instinct. Fear readies us to flee or
attack.
“When we are afraid, our bodies undergo a
series of physiological changes. We have all
heard stories of mothers who have lifted a
car to save their child, and people who are
afraid do not feel physical pain when they
are injured. People may be fatally stabbed,
but may still be able to run away from the
perpetrator. The pain comes afterwards.
The reason for this is that the blood goes
from the brain to the muscles. We are gov-
erned by our reflexes and become strong.
The body is ready for fight or flight,” Åsli
says.
Unnecessary fear
To be frightened in this context can be a
positive thing, but what if you are afraid of
something that is actually safe? Overreact-
ing with fear every time you see a wasp can
be exhausting.
“People can be afraid of many things.
Many Europeans are terrified of insects,
but strictly speaking, electrical sockets are
far more dangerous for us, not to mention
driving. Automobile phobias are extremely
rare, but there are reports of chocolate
phobia. Fear is often driven by unconscious
processes,” says Flaten.
Fighting fright
People who are fearful can be quite limited
in their everyday lives. A fear of confined
spaces, open spaces or big crowds may
mean that people isolate themselves and
their quality of life can be quite poor.
“The best treatment for fear is to be
exposed to what you fear. You then find
out that what you were afraid was going
to happen does not happen. But you need
to start slowly with exposing yourself to
frightening things. If you are afraid of
spiders, you should gradually get closer to
them. First, think through how you should
approach the spider, and then start your
approach. The goal is to let the spider crawl
under your shirt. I've seen people who have
actually done this,” Flaten says, smiling.
According to his colleagues at the Depart-
ment of Psychology, we learn to be afraid
very quickly. For example, if you have
fallen off a horse, your fear of horses may
last for a very long time.
“Our ability to be afraid is very effective – it
only takes one incident for us to be fearful
of something. However, it may take a long
time for us to unlearn the fear,” says Åsli.
A rapid startle reflex
Humans are also very jumpy. It does not
take much to make us really jump out of
our skins.
“We humans have a well-developed startle
reflex, and research has shown that the
more afraid we are, the more powerful the
reflex.”
Researchers can measure our startle reflex,
and how scared we are by measuring how
much we blink. Flaten and Åsli have stud-
ied this by placing electrodes under the eyes
of test subjects to record their startle reflex.
In order to measure fear, for example, the
researchers combine a tone with an electric
shock. The subject thus becomes afraid
of the tone because they know that it is
associated with a shock, so when a loud
tone triggers the subject’s startle reflex, the
researchers can measure the degree of fear.
“The fear of the tone makes it so that you
are extra jumpy, and you blink even more
than you otherwise might.”
Flaten says that action movies deliberately
put us in a state where we are more likely
to startle. The music and mood affect us so
that we jump in our seats.
“We humans are so sensitive to fear that
when we even see a picture of something
that looks like what we are afraid of, we
respond immediately. The pictures were
shown for only a few hundredths of a
second so that the test subjects could not
see the contents of the images. The subjects
reported that they did not see what was in
the picture that was shown, but you could
see that the person responded physiologi-
cally with fear,” says Flaten.
University of Tromsø – Labyrint E/13 ••• 43
Strange phobias:
Some people can handle snakes and
insects perfectly well, while others
have strange phobias. Here are just
a few:
• Coulrophobia: fear of clowns
• Alektorophobia: fear of chickens
• Anglophobia: fear of English culture,
the British and England
• Arachibutyrophobia: fear of peanut
butter getting stuck to the roof of
your mouth
• Cnidophobia: fear of being stung
• Phronemophobia: fear of thinking
• Kainolophobia: fear of knick-knacks,
small ornaments
• Novercaphobia: fear of your mother-
in-law
• Octophobia: fear of the figure eight
• Dendrophobia: fear of trees
• Gynephobia: fear of women
• Hemaphobia: fear of blood
• Kypertrichophobia: fear of hair
• Leukophobia: fear of the colour
white
Source:www.fobier.net