Historical Transition of Psychological Theories of Fear: The View of Fear in Behaviorism

Abstract

This chapter will discuss changes in psychological theories regarding concepts of how fear develops. In the early period of psychology, the psychology of learning exerted a strong influence, and it was thought that most behaviors and mental processes were acquired through experience; thus, phobias and fears of specific animals and places were believed to be acquired through learning. Once fear is felt toward a particular animal on one occasion, an individual becomes afraid of that animal through classical conditioning. Mowrer used a two-process model to explain that the avoidance response is maintained even if the animal does not cause any further fear in the individual. His theory was widely accepted not only by experimental psychologists but also by clinical psychologists.

However, the results of numerous experiments have proven that the premise of equipotentiality, which holds that any stimulus and response can be learned, is invalid. A rat can associate a taste with sensations of illness when these stimuli are paired just once; however, it is difficult for it to associate audiovisual stimuli with sensations of illness even when these stimuli are paired several dozen times. Rats quickly learn to press a lever to obtain food, and they quickly learn to flee to the next room to turn off an electric shock; however, they cannot learn to stop the delivery of an electric shock beforehand by pressing a lever. Seligman asserts that the evolutionary processes of all animals have a “preparedness” for their natural environments, and on this basis, it is easy for them to learn some things and hard for them to learn others.