Fear

Fear

Fear is an emotion induced by a perceived threat that causes animals to move quickly away from the location of the perceived threat, and sometimes hide. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. In short, fear is the ability to recognize danger leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it (also known as the fight-or-flight response) but in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) a freeze or paralysis response is possible. Some psychologists such as John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that there is only a small set of basic or innate emotions and that fear is one of them. This hypothesized set includes such emotions as joy, sadness, and anger. Fear should be distinguished from the emotion anxiety, which typically occurs without any certain or immediate external threat.

Read more about Fear.

Famous quotes containing the word fear:

    Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
    Bible: New Testament, Matthew 10:28.

    I bow’d not to thy image for succession,
    Nor bound thy bow to shoot reformed kindness,
    Thy plays of hope and fear were my confession,
    The spectacles to my life was thy blindness;
    But Cupid now farewell, I will go play me,
    With thoughts that please me less and less betray me.
    Fulke Greville (1554–1628)

    Events that are predestined require but little management. They manage themselves. They slip into place while we sleep, and suddenly we are aware that the thing we fear to attempt, is already accomplished.
    Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)