7: Surprise and Fear
Surprised is "the briefest of all the emotions" in that it lasts only a few seconds until someone figures out what is happening, then the emotion becomes something else: amusement, relief, fear, or whatever.
Because of its brevity, it is difficult to photograph genuine surprise, and if a surprised look is given for more than an instant, it is usually feigned. It is also difficult to avoid displaying genuine surprise, so it is very useful as a method of lie detection to monitor a person's reaction to information that ought to catch them by surprise.
The author is a bit skeptical about surprise being a genuine emotion, as the behavior shown when someone is startled is more of a reflex action- it is momentary confusion as a person does not know how to feel until they process the information they have received. Even so it is worth considering because it is a common experience that is part of a behavioral pattern: event-surprise-emotion. It's also mentioned that the emotion felt after a moment of surprise is generally felt strongly.
Of all the emotions, fear has been the most researched, likely because it is one of the most common and most undesirable emotions. It is also easier to instill fear in nearly any animal: it is a simple matter to cause a rat to feel afraid - how does on go about making one happy?
The sight of something that is expected to cause physical pain is a common trigger for fear, even if there is no real threat. Snakes are an almost universal cause of fear, and research shows people are more afraid of snakes than guns or knives. But at the same time, there are people who are curious about snakes, enjoy physical contact with them, and keep them as pets.
So it is likely that there is no innate fear of anything: people learn to be afraid, either by experiencing injury, seeing another person injured, seeing another person's fear reaction, or learning about fear indirectly (through language or visual depiction).
Fear is also not a rational emotion: people fear things that have no potential to do them harm, and still have a fear reaction even if there are safety constraints. A person afraid of spiders still withdraws from seeing a spider in an aquarium, and may even recoil at a film or picture of a spider. Fear of the dark is irrational and widespread.
The reaction to fear is also not universal. In general, we choose to fight, flee, or freeze. Two people with the same fear may react differently, and one person who experiences fear may react differently on different occasions.
The "fight" reasons is the least common because it requires the subject to recognize that the source of their threat is something that can be attacked. No-one attempts to fight when they feel the fear of the dark or a fear of heights. Fear of a physical object might cause a person to throw something at it or push it away. It is only when our fear is evoked by a person or animal that we seek to fight to counteract the threat.
It's also argued that the "fight" response is caused by anger rather than fear: we are angry at whatever startled us rather than afraid of it. And because fear is irrational, it can be seen that people an animals will attack superior foes when they feel afraid of them.
The most common fear is momentary, which subsides when a threat has passed, but there can also be prolonged fears when a person spends considerable time in a situation they consider threatening. A person who is afraid of flying will continue to experience fear for the duration of the flight - it may be felt more or less intensely, but it is always present.
Prolonged fear is also felt when a person knows of an unpleasant event that is expect to occur in the future. A person who is afraid of dentists will feel that fear from the moment their appointment is scheduled, weeks in advance, though the fear tends to become more intense as the appointment approaches.
Panic is an intense feeling of fear that generally occur when there is an immediate threat, but which may occur when there is a future threat. The author relates a time when he had an upcoming surgery, and experienced a series of panic attacks leading up to the event.
Fear tends to focus the mind on the threat, preventing a person from giving attention to other things. It is in this way that fear can kill: it causes a person to be inattentive to health maintenance (starvation can occur if a person who is experiencing fear neglects their diet), or it can cause a person to be inattentive to a possible mitigation (in a fire, people flee to a corner where they are trapped rather than scanning for an exit), or it can simply cause a person to freeze and fail to take evasive action.
At the same time, the focus caused by fear is a survival mechanism: when there is a serious impending threat, it merits our full attention.
While fear is focused on pain, "pain" itself is not considered to be an emotion. It is a physical or somatic sensation.
It's mentioned that people can take pleasure in experiencing the sensation of fear - though it would be more accurate to say that they enjoy the sense of relief they have when the feeling of fear has passed.
The average person is able to tolerate some level of fear and continue to function in spite of it. No-one particularly likes being poked with a needle, but most people are able to submit to a medical injection in spite of their dislike. When a person's fear prevents them from doing something that is necessary, it is said to be dysfunctional.
Anxiety is a related emotion. When a person is anxious, he feels as if he is in danger, but does not know quite how he is in danger. He does not know what is threatening him, or what he can do about it, but still feels the heightened emotions of a person in fear.
Phobias are among the best known psychological disorders. A phobia is an irrational fear of something that is not immediately threatening. It may be a fear of something innocuous (fear of sunflowers) or it may be fear of something dangerous that the person is highly unlikely to encounter (fear of sharks when one is nowhere near the ocean). Phobias can become dysfunctional when they prevent a person from engaging in normal or necessary behavior.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a form of fear that has become quite fashionable. It was identified as a condition of combat soldiers who, after leaving the battlefield, still feel in peril, but it has been extended to anyone who has experienced a traumatic incident from which they have not mentally recovered. When no specific event can be identified as the origin of the stress, it is simply called "pathological anxiety."
Recognizing Fear
In general, we have no problem recognizing fear in ourselves because the emotion has such strong physical symptoms. We are also aware of fear because our attention is focused on a threat. Anxiety can be more difficult to recognize: a person feels agitated, but does not know the reason why.
In others, fear can be recognized by the widening of the eyes and tightening of the lips, often revealing the teeth. The person tends to move or lean away from the threat, and arms may be raised in a defensive posture.
It's noted that we may recognize the expression of fear (or worry, or anxiety) but we do not necessarily know the cause. It may be something we can observe in the environment, or a person may be thinking of something else entirely.
It may also be difficult to diagnose fear, as in many cultures it is not encouraged to show fear, or admit feeling fear at all.