IS fear really an adaptive emotion?

[kabab]

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Every psychiatry book says the same thing ... fear is neutral .. can be adaptive or maladaptive ...
maladaptive if it's excessive, chronic, irrational, interferes with your functioning...
adaptive as in it activates the autonomic nervous system, flight and avoid danger ..

wouldn't it be better from evolutionary point of view if we had no fear at all, however we continue to perceive danger, recognize it, and react accordingly?

 

[slappy]

wouldn't it be better from evolutionary point of view if we had no fear at all

Interesting question. The answer would be no, because having a primitive/subconscious response to danger in addition to the conscious response can only be better from an evolutionary point of view as the former would serve as an additional alert system.

however we continue to perceive danger, recognize it, and react accordingly?

This would be the aforementioned conscious response and we do it already.

 

[Mad Jack]

Evolution doesn't select for the best possible trait that could possibly exist, it selects from what it is given. Fear was the first successful advanced adaptive threat response system to come along, and it just kind of stuck around for the ride until today.

 

[kabab]

How can fear be subconscious when it's all learned and can be unlearned ... we are not born with fears ..
I don't believe there is fear without cognition ... cognition comes first then comes response and emotion.
I am aware of the available literature in neuroscience that there are two pathways to fear one primitive/sub-cortical involving the amygdala/hypothalamus and another advanced pathway involving the visual cortex/amygdala .. but i still think that all fear is conscious and maladaptive.

 

[Nasrudin]

How can fear be subconscious when it's all learned and can be unlearned ... we are not born with fears ..
I don't believe there is fear without cognition ... cognition comes first then comes response and emotion.
I am aware of the available literature in neuroscience that there are two pathways to fear one primitive/sub-cortical involving the amygdala/hypothalamus and another advanced pathway involving the visual cortex/amygdala .. but i still think that all fear is conscious and maladaptive.

Very interesting thread.

I have a question--is fear itself maladaptive or how it manifests in consciousness? For example, professional fighters talk about the heightened state of arousal as useful as long as the fear does not permeate the ability to act instinctively. And with proper training the combination of arousal and experience managing fear is the key to peak performance.

 

[kabab]

fear doesn't equal arousal ... fear can lead to arousal as does joy, anger, excitement .. you don't need fear to be aroused or any other emotion for that matter, the instinct of self preservation is the strongest motive in life and the primary arousal source.
fear comes from the thought that your defense mechanisms aren't enough to manage a certain situation and the response to fear is always to flight/avoid/freeze and not fight.

 

[kabab]

If fear is adaptive why do we continuously trying to control it as in not to panic ..

 

[Nasrudin]

If fear is adaptive why do we continuously trying to control it as in not to panic ..

Perhaps for proper engagement of our endocrine system and our adrenal glands and all the other responses of the sympathetic nervous system that shunts blood and glucose to the heart and brain and muscle.

I disagree that all states of arousal are somehow the same. Unless your using neuroscience meanings of these terms that I don't understand.

 

[kabab]

This is a known experiment in psychology .. just to let you know that arousal is the same .. cognition is different.

Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer (1962) aroused college men with injections of the hormone epinephrine. Picture yourself as one of their participants: After receiving the injection, you go to a waiting room, where you find yourself with another person (actually an accomplice of the experimenters) who is acting either euphoric or irritated. As you observe this person, you begin to feel your heart race, your body flush, and your breathing become more rapid. If told to expect these effects from the injection, what would you feel? Schachter and Singer’s volunteers felt little emotion—because they attributed their arousal to the drug. But if told the injection would produce no effects, what would you feel? Perhaps you would react, as another group of participants did, by “catching” the apparent emotion of the person you are with—becoming happy if the accomplice is acting euphoric, and testy if the accomplice is acting irritated.

 

[slappy]

How can fear be subconscious when it's all learned and can be unlearned ... we are not born with fears ..
I don't believe there is fear without cognition ... cognition comes first then comes response and emotion.
I am aware of the available literature in neuroscience that there are two pathways to fear one primitive/sub-cortical involving the amygdala/hypothalamus and another advanced pathway involving the visual cortex/amygdala .. but i still think that all fear is conscious and maladaptive.

Well, you can believe what you want, but certain fears are indeed innate. These include things like fear of heights, snakes, insects, etc. Here's a good review for you: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16563589

 

[slappy]

Also, a quick Google search brought up this "blog post": http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anxiety-files/200805/are-we-born-be-afraid

Admittedly, I haven't had the time to read it fully, but from a brief glance, it appears as though it might answer some of your questions. Good luck.

 

[heyjack70]

How can fear be subconscious when it's all learned and can be unlearned ... we are not born with fears ..
I don't believe there is fear without cognition ... cognition comes first then comes response and emotion.
I am aware of the available literature in neuroscience that there are two pathways to fear one primitive/sub-cortical involving the amygdala/hypothalamus and another advanced pathway involving the visual cortex/amygdala .. but i still think that all fear is conscious and maladaptive.

Learned material can be unconscious.

 

[Nasrudin]

I'm not certain that the work you cited about the 2-factor theory of emotion helps to answer your question. The misattribution of environmental stimuli is a problem in the context of trauma or abuse but that doesn't mean it doesn't play role in our evolution.

If emotion is useful for memory and avoidance of danger then it has a role in survival of one source of DNA over another.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

As I tell patients every week, you and I are here today because our ancestors had a well-developed fright/fight/flight reflex and avoided cave bears, snakes, and saber-toothed tigers long enough to reproduce.

 

[Salpingo]

If fear is adaptive why do we continuously trying to control it as in not to panic ..

What was adaptive 10,000 years ago for a deer (for example, freezing absolutely still so that a predator can't see your movement), has become less advantageous in the past 100 years with the invention of the automobile and headlights. To put it another way, while some higher systems (culture, group behavior) evolve, the more basic systems (neurocircuitry, genetics) have yet to catch up.

The intent behind your question seems to be why do we have negative valence systems (acute threat/"fear", potential threat/"anxiety", sustained threat, loss, frustrative nonreward). This is an area of active research, on multiple levels. Check out the NIMH RDoC if you're interested. I'd be interested to know what evolutionary pressures led to depression (if any).

Finally, just looking through the RDoC website, NIMH would likely argue that there are some innate sources of anxiety; for example, rodents are inherently anxious in light, while humans are inherently anxious in the dark.

 

[Nasrudin]

What was adaptive 10,000 years ago for a deer (for example, freezing absolutely still so that a predator can't see your movement), has become less advantageous in the past 100 years with the invention of the automobile and headlights. To put it another way, while some higher systems (culture, group behavior) evolve, the more basic systems (neurocircuitry, genetics) have yet to catch up.

The intent behind your question seems to be why do we have negative valence systems (acute threat/"fear", potential threat/"anxiety", sustained threat, loss, frustrative nonreward). This is an area of active research, on multiple levels. Check out the NIMH RDoC if you're interested. I'd be interested to know what evolutionary pressures led to depression (if any).

Finally, just looking through the RDoC website, NIMH would likely argue that there are some innate sources of anxiety; for example, rodents are inherently anxious in light, while humans are inherently anxious in the dark.

Very interesting. Thanks for explaining negative valence systems. I wonder if the response to sustained threat might fit your deer and headlights example, in terms of being modern problem that our central nervous systems have not accommodated to. But I think if you are really going for the evolutionary framing of the question it's important to think about survival to pass on genes versus negative chronic valence systems as you say.

If my unconscious mind can read patterns of threat and cause arousal preemptively then my chances to survive long enough to pass on my genes has more effect on the future of these traits than if I die prematurely from problems with chronic stress, which may be the predominant problem in the more sedate developed parts of the world.

 

[kabab]

Do we need fear to avoid danger? or do we avoid danger anyway with or without fear as long as our mind labels it as dangerous? if it's the latter then why do we need fear?

 

[Nasrudin]

Do we need fear to avoid danger? or do we avoid danger anyway with or without fear as long as our mind labels it as dangerous? if it's the latter then why do we need fear?

The thalamus to amygdala system is faster than cognition. Fear as an excitation response would seem useful as preemptive form of avoiding potential threats before the cortex has time to determine is that response was warranted. Where for most of our history the seconds of precognition might make the survival difference and therefore the probability of passing on this neural response to a greater degree.

Why are you singling out fear? Is it because the other emotions might have more obvious social cohesion advantage?

I think fear activates a quicker environmental response and is therefore useful in avoiding danger before that danger can be assessed. Is it purely necessary, as in might an alien species have evolved a different survival strategy....I don't see why not.

 

[Caldwell-Luc]

Every psychiatry book says the same thing ... fear is neutral .. can be adaptive or maladaptive ...
maladaptive if it's excessive, chronic, irrational, interferes with your functioning...
adaptive as in it activates the autonomic nervous system, flight and avoid danger ..

wouldn't it be better from evolutionary point of view if we had no fear at all, however we continue to perceive danger, recognize it, and react accordingly?

I would say no because fear is what keeps us out of danger by that fight or flight physiological response. For example, fear can help prevent us from being a crime victim by giving us a need to feel safe. So we escape or try our best to not become a victim of crime. Thus, fear leads us to think: "Safety as a means of prevention." Also people wouldn't be afraid to take risks that could cause harm.

You might be interested in a book called "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin De becker. Although, it is focused on crime, it is an interesting read.