We are all afraid of something. Fear is one of the most basic and powerful primary emotions that exist, as well as one of the most adaptive. And fear allows us to avoid stimuli that can cause us some type of damage or harm, activating our systems to give a quick response of flight or attack.
Most of our fears are learned from experience but…are they all? The truth is that no. So that, Do innate fears exist? In this article we are going to talk about it.
There are a large number of classifications of the different existing fears, one of them being those that divide them into two large groups: innate and acquired.
Acquired fears are those that have been learned throughout life, their appearance due to the experience of situations that have caused a stimulus to become aversive or frightening.
Regarding the type of fear that concerns us in this article, innate fear, would be defined as the sensation of fear that is not born from experience but comes from genetic inheritance of our ancestors, this fear being something unconscious and common in the vast majority of human beings.
In addition to this difference, another difference has been observed that may have useful implications at the treatment level: innate fears and conditioned fears are partly processed by different neural mechanisms. These differences can even be observed between different types of element to fear (e.g. predators).
An evolutionary mechanism
The reason for the appearance of innate fears is the simple fact that they are linked to the survival of the species, and are also a product of natural selection: those who at a specific moment were predisposed to be afraid of certain stimuli and avoided them survived longer. easily and managed to transmit their genes.
Likewise, innate fears are often identified with evolutionary fears in another sense: those that arise throughout the evolutionary development of each subject, appearing and sometimes disappearing as we mature. In this sense, it is true that Most of the fears we have in childhood are innate (although they are affected by learning), but we must nevertheless keep in mind that most of the fears we have throughout life are largely caused by learning or socialization.
For example, the fear of death is something that appears in human beings but is ultimately the product of cultural learning. The same can be said about the fear of failure, or the fear of fantastic beings. With this we intend to say that although they are often similar, evolutionary fears are not always innate
An innate fear, but not unchangeable
The fact that innate fears exist does not mean that they cannot vary. Learning is a powerful tool that can cause the intensity of the fear felt to be significantly reduced, and other alterations can also generate a loss of fear.
This is what happens with some mice, which lose their innate fear of cats when they are infected by the toxoplasma gondii parasite and whose loss of fear remains even when the infection has been eliminated. In addition to that, brain disorders and injuries They can alter the ability to feel fear, especially if they affect the limbic system.
Various examples
The existence of innate fears is visible in different cases that are repeated throughout the world throughout our development and without any type of harm having to happen. In this sense we can see numerous examples, of which we select several below. Most of them appear throughout development although some of those that appear in this period are derived either from the direct experience of aversive experiences or from vicarious or cultural learning.
From the moment we are born, we can see how most babies burst into tears when they hear a loud noise. This fear is largely due to surprise or the detection of possible danger, and even in adulthood it causes shock. It usually appears at birth or a period between the first two years of life It is visible in the existence of innate protective reflexes against these sounds, as well as in the fact that we immediately orient ourselves towards their source.
2. Darkness
The fear of the dark is one of the best-known innate fears, as well as one of the most easily analyzed for its evolutionary meaning. The human being as a species is essentially diurnal, not possessing great adaptations that allow us to see possible dangers lurking. Curiously, although innate, this fear is detected between two and six years of age.
3. Heights and falls
The fear of falling is another of the best-known innate fears, appearing between six months and around the first year of life. This is because we begin to detect depth. Although there may be experiences of falls involved in this fear, the truth is that the body itself has reflexes that try to avoid them the most visible example being the so-called Moro reflection.
4. Strangers
Another fear that we could consider innate is the fear of strangers, which also usually appears around the third trimester of life. This fear is not elicited by the presence of an aversive experience that generates its appearance, although education can influence it. Many babies, for example, they start to cry or stop smiling when they see someone they don’t know
5. Separation and loneliness
Nobody teaches us to be afraid of being alone, nor does it have a detrimental effect on the body that could make us fear it. However, many children are afraid of separating from their parents. A fear that usually appears between two and six years of age.
This fear is generally quite common in childhood and many adults still find it somewhat scary. In this case we are probably facing a fear derived from the combination of light and sound of lightning and thunder. It is also something inherited, given that throughout our evolution we have needed to take refuge from storms given their danger.
7. Fear of certain animals
The fear of beings like spiders and snakes has an evolutionary meaning that causes many people to avoid them. It is also observed that in many children a certain fear of small animals appears during childhood. Likewise, it has been observed that when exposed to the image of a possible predator, many animal species react with fear and tend to avoid it even without having had previous experiences with said animal.
However, in humans there is debate about whether this fear cannot really be a conditioned fear: it has been observed, on the other hand, that, if we place a baby near animals considered dangerous such as snakes, probably arouse more curiosity than fear. In this sense, fear could be due to a certain degree to cultural learning.
8. Odors
Although not as much in humans as in other animal species, some odors can also generate a high level of fear. This is what happens, for example, in the case of mice when they smell a cat’s urine or with other beings when they perceive the odors of their natural predators.
