By David Hurtado
For as long as humanity has walked the earth, fear has always been lurking within the recesses of our minds, shadowing us as a species.
Susie Sympson, adjunct professor of psychology, said one of the theories on why people feel fear is that as young children we learn it from our parents.
“It’s one of the basic, natural things people have,” Sympson said. “Behaviorists believe we teach people to fear. According to classical conditioning, the neutral stimulus will lead people who experience a fear generalize that fear to similar things. If you grow up with a parent who has a phobia of storms, you’re either going to grow up fearing storms or as a protector.”
Behaviorism is one of the schools of psychology. Other schools of psychology include structuralism, functionalism and psychoanalysis.
When confronted with a perceived threat, humans either flee with their tail between their legs or they con- front the aggressor head on to protect their existence in what is called a flight or fight response. The flight or fight response was first coined by Walter Bradford Cannon.
Sympson said some fears are more common in humans than others, like arachnids and death. According to psychologists, these are primal fears that our ancestors developed for their survival. Fears like Aeronausiphobia, or a fear of airsickness, are relatively new on the playing field.
“There are some that are much more prevalent with people,” Sympson said. “It’s mainly things like snakes, spiders or other harmful creatures.”
For Rick Easter, student, the big- gest phobia in his life is not falling or needles, but tornadoes.
“I’m kind of scared of tornadoes, I don’t know what phobia that is, but when I think of tornadoes I kind of freak out,” Easter said. “I’ve never actually been in a tornado or seen a live one, but it’s just something about tornadoes that freaks me out. I know living in Kansas is kind of the wrong place to live with that phobia, but what can you do?”
And it’s not just toddlers, adolescents and adults that can feel fear creeping up their spine. Although many people assume babies don’t feel fear like heights or falling, Sympson said it is very possible that they do.
“In most instances people don’t think that they can,” Sympson said. “There was an experiment with a Plexiglas table where a baby crawled to the edge of it and stopped. Did the baby know to stop automatically or was it afraid of falling?”
Just as people have different phobias throughout life, so too are the ways in which we react to them. While some people assume societies both past and present have a similar way of coping with phobias, that is not always the case, according to Sympson.
“We live in such an ethnocentric society that we are very arrogant in thinking our way is the only way,” Sympson said. “Some societies are going to be more stoic than others and have a different attitude on how to express fear.”
There are some fears out there though, that do not have a name attached to them. Alex Sanders, student, said his biggest phobia was female drivers.
“It’s probably girls driving, that is one of the scariest things,” Sanders said. “Just being with them on the road, I’ve learned not to trust them when it comes to driving.”
Less common fears in human society include Bolshephobia, a fear of Bolsheviks, Dextrophobia, or a fear of objects on the right side of the body and Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, which is, ironically enough, a fear of long words.
Students who suffer from a phobia and want help in overcoming it are encouraged to contact Susie Sympson, adviser to Active Minds. Active Minds is a club on campus created to help students deal with various disorders pertaining to mental health.
Contact David Hurtado, reporting correspondent, at dhurtado@jccc.edu.