Psychology Archipelago

What's wrong with being a little scared sometimes?

It's Halloween, a time of spooky ghosts and carved pumpkins. But the modern age is also a time of enlightenment, a time of rationality and reason. Still, many of us (myself included) have irrational beliefs, whether fears or superstitions.

12.5% of U.S. adults are estimated to have specific phobias, an intense fear of something that poses little or no danger, at some time in their life. Although this figure might seem low, this only includes phobias. Most of our fears, even if somewhat irrational, do not reach the intensity to qualify as a phobia. 

Why? By evolution, shouldn’t we only be afraid of things that affect our ability to survive?

Well, it turns out that evolution might be the culprit of many of these fears in the first place.  

First, we’re living in a relatively safe society. A lot of things that used to be a matter of life and death are no longer dangerous.

For example, many people are afraid of the dark. Do you run to your bedroom after turning off the light? Or jump on your bed to avoid the monsters under there? At a scientific level, darkness is just the absence of photons, so it must be a pretty irrational fear, right? There is, however, an evolutionary explanation. 

We did not always used to live in safe houses without worry of a predator suddenly attacking and eating you. Under the darkness of the night, people were vulnerable to attacks due to a lack of visibility. People who were more vigilant during the night were more likely to spot incoming attacks and survive.

At the core, the fear of darkness is a fear of the unknown, which some have posited as the fundamental fear. We don’t know if there’s a predator or a monster out there so we get scared. In the modern age, this fear of the unknown often translates to anxiety, and is the worry that underlines the fear of what’s in the dark, how you’ll do in the next test, or what others think of you.
The dark used to be a time of fear and unknown. We never knew what predators may have been out there on the prowl.
Evolution might also overgeneralize real dangers. 

Less well known than the fear of darkness is the fear and disgust of holes, also known as trypophobia (I personally recommend NOT looking this up). In particular, it seems that lotus seed pods and wasp nests are the most prominent examples in nature that seem to cause a disgust reaction.

Although some psychologists argue that trypophobia is not a real phobia since it seems to mainly operate on disgust, no matter what it is, disliking holes still seems completely irrational.

However, according to one study, these disgust reactions are much stronger when superimposed on skin. Thus, these reactions might be due to evolutionary adaptation to avoid parasites and disease. Lumps or holes on skin are associated with parasites and pathogens that would have been evolutionarily advantageous to avoid. This kind of avoidance is a part of what is called the “behavioral immune system,” psychological mechanisms that help us to avoid getting sick.

Although seeming illogical at first glance, it turns out that trypophobia, and indeed most phobias have an evolutionary benefit to them. 

In order for evolution to select for these sort of traits, there has to be a genetic component to phobias. Research has shown that first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, or children) of those who have a phobia show a three-fold increase in phobias. Meta-analysis of twin studies for specific phobias have reported a mean variation of about 30% that can be explained by heritability.  

Although often too a lesser extent, many cultures also have collective beliefs, superstitions, that are not rational. Black cats, breaking mirrors, or walking under a ladder are well known superstitions in western culture. In East Asian culture, writing your name in red or whistling at night are considered faux pas. 

My mom who is Japanese always tells me not to cut my nails at night because you won't see your parents when they pass away.
In the past, more extreme superstitions lead to events such as the Salem Witch Trials where over 200 people were accused of engaging in witchcraft. 19 people were hanged and one was pressed to his death by rocks. Although likely more a product of mob mentality rather than superstition, historical events like this show the power of these sorts of beliefs in the supernatural.

Even for superstitions, it seems there may be some evolutionary advantage, where there is a tradeoff between frequent errors and some occasional, but extremely beneficial superstitions. For example, if there was a legend that there were a 5-legged 2-faced monster that would attack and curse you if you walked alone in the woods at night, that might save lives if there was a tiger in the area hunting humans, even if the superstition were technically false. 

While most fears are relatively innocuous, when they start to impair our ability to lead normal functioning lives, exposure therapy is the treatment of choice. Exposure therapy involves exposing the person to their fear in incremental steps, in the hope of demonstrating that they can overcome the object of fear. 
An example of exposure therapy for those with a fear of the dark might go as follows:


First, just show a picture of a dark room. After that becomes bearable, move on to imagining oneself in a dark room. Then, once that no longer becomes anxiety inducing, stay in a dimly lit room. Finally, the person who was previously terrified of the dark might be able to “extinguish” the fear and stay in a dark room.

Research suggests that people with phobias that do not result from trauma have a dysfunction in “learning-independent” fear circuits, which include the amygdala. By exposing the person to the object of their fear, there is a decrease in amygdala activation, known as amygdala habituation. 

But for most people, fear is natural and isn't intense enough to interfere with the enjoyment of life. There is a reason why people have fears. Life wasn’t always as safe as it is for most of us today. These fears are what kept humans surviving long enough to propagate. So, as long as it isn’t interfering with your life, what’s so wrong with being a little irrational?