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Facing your fears: the strange world of phobias

As a species that has all but transcended evolution, why do we still fear things that pose no meaningful threat? Sanya Saxena dives into the world of phobias to find out why we are such cowards.

By Sanya Saxena, Second Year, Neuroscience

We are a strange species. As human beings, we have accomplished the physically impossible, yet somehow, the concept of phobias is still rampant within our society. It is astounding how many of us are paralysed by things like balloons, clowns, or teeny tiny insects.

The NHS defines phobias as an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling, or animal. As opposed to general fears, phobias can occur when there is no danger, and cause people to purposefully avoid certain situations. Whereas fears are mainly triggered when a person is faced with something genuinely life-threatening. So why do phobias exist? Why do they cause people to practically jump out of their skin? 

 Ancestral component of phobias:  

Scientists have long believed that certain phobias we experience may be inherited from our ancestors. Our phobias for things such as spiders, birds, or even butterflies are built on the idea that phobias form part of our survival mechanisms that helped our ancestors avoid threats in their environment.

Imagine this: a bunch of cavemen chilling, playing with rocks, and suddenly a Saber tooth tiger appears. Their fear response is activated, and off they go, running for dear life. Their feeling of danger basically prevented them from being torn up into shreds. Hence, our brains developed the ability to respond to threats.

However, in this lifetime, a Saber tooth tiger encounter is off the cards for the vast majority of us. So the primitive instinct developed by our ancestors to fear these menacing predators got replaced by an irrational fear for harmless little animals like butterflies or mice. While these things may not be as menacing as a Saber tooth tiger, our brain has the ability to make us irrationally petrified by anything unfamiliar or alien, even if they are harmless, in order to protect us.  

 Can fears be inherited?  

For those of you psychology buffs, you will be familiar with Sigmund Freud. He hypothesised the idea that our fears as adults stem from unresolved childhood traumas. Essentially, we may learn to associate certain traumas with specific objects. For example, if a child is attacked by a dog, even as an adult, they may have a fear of dogs.  The NHS has even attributed claustrophobia (the fear of confined spaces), to possibly being the result of one getting trapped in a confined space during childhood and that trauma manifesting itself as a phobia.

However, research has demonstrated phobias may also be a type of learned response. If a child sees their parent or any older figure in their life afraid of something, they may also develop this fear regardless of whether they have any personal experiences with it.

This learning process can be explained through Albert Bandura's social learning theory. It theorizes that children look towards adults as ‘models’ on how to interpret the world so, if their role models react to something with anxiety, they are likely to adopt the same fears. The emotional bond that parents and children share will strengthen this process of observational learning. So, if you do have any debilitating unexplained phobias, perhaps check whether your parents have them too.    

Pedro Figueras/Pexels

 How pop culture has turned us into cowards 

My personal favourite theory is the role of pop culture in creating phobias. Empirical research has displayed that exposure to different forms of media can actually heighten phobic responses.  Movies and TV shows have a miraculous way of triggering phobias that we didn’t even know we had. For example, take The Ring. Now, we all know that  no girl with long black hair is going to crawl out of the TV screen at 3 in the morning. But, after watching that, any time you spot long hair draped over someone's face, your brain goes, "It's happening. She's coming for me."

Movies and TV shows love to make us afraid of things that frankly have a very low chance of killing us. Although, even things we see on the news can instil certain phobias in us. Picture this: a sensationalised news report comes out about a man finding snakes hidden in his kitchen. This could lead to individuals being a bit wary as to whether they may have snakes hidden in their kitchen. Is it likely? Probably not. Does it still scare people? Yes. The reason why media content can induce fear is that it helps to build connections within the brain’s fear circuit. Our fear circuit learns from any dramatic or emotional experiences so, when we continuously observe these experiences in the media, our brains build fears against these things to protect us. So, even though the likelihood that you will be attacked by a scary clown is quite low, after watching movies like IT, you may develop a fear of clowns as your brain believes they now pose a threat to your safety.  

Whether they are rooted in ancient survival mechanisms, traumatic childhood moments, or media-induced scares, phobias remain not only a fascinating, but sometimes important part of the human experience. Truly understanding the root cause behind phobias can form part of therapeutic mechanisms that help individuals eventually overcome their phobias. In fact, cognitive behavioural therapy utilizes a technique known as cognitive restructuring, which helps patients eventually restructure and replace any irrational thoughts related to their phobias.  This demonstrates how we are able to move past debilitating fears and can find peace in knowing they are not always permanent.

Featured Image: Corin Hadley/Procreate

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