Mercy For Animals (MFA) is an international nonprofit
animal protection organization founded in 1999 by Milo Runkle. MFA's
mission is to "prevent cruelty to farmed animals and promote
compassionate food choices and policies."
MFA has conducted more than 65 investigations of factory farms and slaughterhouses, many of which have resulted in animal cruelty convictions, changes in corporate animal welfare policies, and primetime media coverage. The organization has guided many of the world's largest food companies, including Nestlé, Perdue, and Walmart, in adopting animal welfare policies.
MFA also promotes vegan eating through social media, videos, writing, and online resources.
History
1999–2007: Founding and early days
Milo Runkle wrote in Mercy For Animals: One Man's Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals,
published in 2017, that he founded MFA after a biology teacher at his
rural Ohio high school brought dead piglets to class to be dissected.
One piglet was still alive, so a student who worked on the teacher's
farm grabbed the piglet and slammed her headfirst against the floor.
The incident was controversial in the community, yet a judge ruled that
the student's action was legal because it was "standard agricultural
practice."
Milo writes that the injustice weighed heavily on him and led him
to create an organization with a mission to protect farmed animals.
MFA conducted its first investigations in 2001. Investigators
entered two Ohio egg factory farms at night five times over several
weeks. They collected hours of video footage, gave water to dehydrated
hens, and rescued other suffering birds.
These open rescues made headlines around the state. Ohio's
largest television news station at the time aired the footage, promoting
the segment as "The Video the Egg Industry Doesn't Want You to See".
The following year, MFA investigators recorded footage from
inside another Ohio factory farm, Weaver Bros. Egg Farm. About five
hours of video showed thousands of hens in cages, birds trapped between
cage wire unable to access food or water, and dead animals rotting next
to other birds still laying eggs for human consumption. MFA used the footage to discredit a new Animal Care Certified label which advertised that hens were raised humanely.
MFA asked prosecutors to investigate and file charges against these farms, but no charges were filed.
2008–2010: Undercover investigations and state legislation
Current MFA investigators obtain employment at factory farms and slaughterhouses to document conditions.
Being in the facilities for extended periods of time allows the
investigators to record repeated abuse and make a case for systemic and
ongoing cruelty, which can spur animal cruelty convictions, corporate
animal welfare policies, and new legislation.
In 2008, animal rights advocates organized a grassroots campaign
across California to pass Proposition 2, a state ballot initiative
requiring that egg-laying hens, pregnant pigs, and calves raised for
veal be given enough room to lie down, stand up, fully extend their
limbs, and turn around. MFA released investigative footage from inside
two of California's largest egg farms, Gemperle Enterprises and Norco
Ranch, just two weeks before the vote.
Prop 2 passed and is still considered one of the most significant
pieces of farmed animal protection legislation ever enacted in the
United States.
A year later, MFA investigators in Maine uncovered workers and
managers at an egg factory farm killing birds by grabbing them by the
neck and swinging them in the air. MFA turned the video footage over to
state police, who in turn raided the facility. The facility owner pled
guilty to 10 counts of animal cruelty and agreed to pay more than
$130,000 in fines and restitution, the largest financial penalty ever
levied against a U.S. factory farm.
In 2010, several organizations, including MFA, launched a
campaign to enact legislation in Ohio that would protect farmed animals.
The Ohio Farm Bureau refused to meet with the coalition until an MFA
investigation at an Ohio dairy farm showed workers stabbing cows with
pitchforks, beating them with crowbars, and twisting their tails until
the bones snapped. After the investigation's release, the Ohio Farm
Bureau finally agreed to meet with the groups and enacted farmed animal welfare reforms.
2011–2013: Exposés in Canada, corporate campaigns, and cruelty convictions
Propelled
by progress in the United States, MFA expanded to Canada in 2012. MFA's
first exposé of the Canadian pork industry prompted the country's eight
largest grocers to phase gestation crates out of their supply chains.
A whistleblower documented workers firing metal bolts into pigs'
heads—leaving many pigs unconscious for minutes—and cutting off piglets'
testicles
without painkillers. Some workers slammed piglets headfirst into the
ground to kill them. Pregnant pigs were kept in crates so small the
animals couldn't even turn around. Canada's popular W5 news program aired the footage nationwide.
Canada's pork industry also committed to a national phaseout of
gestation crates, and pork producers agreed to stop mutilating piglets
without pain relief.
Footage taken by MFA at two Alberta suppliers to Burnbrae Farms, at the time an egg supplier to McDonald's Canada, prompted nearly 120,000 Canadians to call on McDonald's to ban cages for egg-laying hens in the company's supply chain.
Following the exposé and public outcry, McDonald's announced a policy
to eliminate cages for hens from its North American supplier farms. Nearly the entire Canadian food industry followed suit.
In the U.S., MFA conducted investigations inside turkey factory farms supplying Butterball. Media outlets CNN, the Associated Press, NBC, and USA Today
reported on the investigations, which revealed workers violently
stomping on turkeys, dragging them by their wings and necks, slamming
them into transport crates, and leaving many to suffer from untreated
injuries and infections. Prompted by hidden-camera footage, law
enforcement in North Carolina conducted a two-day raid at one of the
facilities. Five Butterball employees were arrested and charged with
criminal cruelty to animals. The prosecutions led to the first-ever felony conviction for cruelty to factory-farmed poultry in U.S. history.
The following year, MFA investigated a dairy factory farm in Wisconsin that supplied Nestlé'sDiGiorno Pizza brand. Undercover footage revealed cows beaten, stabbed, and dragged by tractors.
After the video received widespread media attention, Nestlé, the
largest food company in the world, met with MFA and implemented a
far-reaching animal welfare policy.
2014–2016: Campaigns; new initiatives; and expansion to Brazil, Mexico, India, and Asia
Following progress with Nestlé, MFA targeted Leprino Foods, Great Lakes Cheese, and Saputo.
After MFA investigations uncovered abuse in each of their supply
chains, the companies released their own animal welfare policies.
After six MFA investigations into Walmart's pork supply chain, three years of campaigning, and pressure from Bob Barker, James Cromwell, Ryan Gosling, and a slew of other celebrities, in May 2015 Walmart banned gestation crates, battery cages, and veal crates from its U.S. supply chains. The retail giant also pledged to end mutilations without painkillers, such as tail docking, castration, and dehorning.
In early 2016, MFA launched The Good Food Institute. The organization's mission is to create "a healthy, humane, and sustainable food
supply." The Good Food Institute provides strategic support to
companies, promotes plant-based products, supports entrepreneurs, and
educates grant-making institutions, corporations, and governmental
bodies about plant-based and clean meat.
Next, Perdue,
one of the largest chicken producers in the world, announced a
precedent-setting commitment to improving animal welfare after MFA
investigated two contract farms in the U.S. supplying the company. The
policy will reduce suffering for nearly 680 million birds annually.
In the same year, MFA also set up operations in Brazil, Mexico, India, and Asia.
An MFA investigator recorded footage from inside nine
government-run slaughterhouses in Mexico. Pigs were dragged by their
limbs to the killing floor and stabbed repeatedly. A tied-up cow
suffered blows from a sledgehammer. A cornered pig was stabbed in the side with a large knife. The investigation drew attention from major Mexican media outlets Reforma, El Universal, and Proceso.
Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez narrated an MFA video about the cruelty.
In an online petition, Eugenio wrote, "I watched the video in horror as
animals were tied up, shocked for no reason, brutally and repeatedly
bludgeoned with sledgehammers, and then stabbed in the back of the
head."
Back in the U.S., MFA was also part of a coalition of
organizations that worked to pass the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty
Act in Massachusetts.
The measure, passed in 2016, outlaws some of the cruelest farming
practices and bans the sale of eggs, pork, and veal from animals raised
in intensive confinement.
2017–present
After
the 2016 investigations, MFA worked with members of Mexico's congress
to introduce federal legislation that would end the worst slaughter
methods shown in the undercover video. The bill passed through two committees and the representative branch of Mexico's congress, with nearly unanimous support. As of October 2018, the bill was waiting on a senate vote.
MFA launched its Conscious Eating program in Mexico and Brazil in
2017. Through the initiative, MFA works with large institutions—school
districts, universities, and hospitals—to help them reduce the meat,
dairy, and eggs they serve. Because of policy commitments that will
reduce meat, dairy, and egg consumption by 20 percent, school districts,
universities, and social assistance programs across Brazil and Mexico
will serve about 26 million more vegan meals annually. Administrators
and cooks at the institutions receive support, resources, recipes, and
hands-on training from MFA.
MFA has conducted multiple exposés inside factory farms in
Brazil. The exposés have received media coverage in Brazil's largest
daily newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo; major business magazine EXAME; and BuzzFeed News.
In 2018, MFA staff in Brazil helped secure a historic commitment
from Carrefour, the largest supermarket in Brazil, to eliminating small
cages for hens.
After MFA campaigns or discussions with MFA, dozens of other major
brands in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Brazil, including Burger King, General Mills, Jack in the Box,
Pollo Pepe, Les Croissants, Loz Car, Grupo Alimento, Grupo Habib's, and
Grupo Halipar, pledged to change how they treat animals.
In the U.S., MFA worked with coalition partners on the Prevent
Cruelty CA campaign to collect over 660,000 signatures of support for a
ballot initiative to ban the production and sale in California of meat
and eggs from animals confined in cages. The measure, Proposition 12, passed with 63% of the vote on the November 2018 California state ballot.
In recent years, MFA has also pioneered investigations of factory
farms and slaughterhouses using drones. MFA drones have exposed 35
factory farms, and views of the investigative videos have surpassed 22
million.
A 2018 undercover investigation into California's driftnet
fishing industry by MFA and a coalition of organizations showed dolphins
entangled and drowned in driftnets, endangered species killed, and
sharks cut apart and stabbed while still alive and conscious.
The investigation received coverage by The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, NBC Bay Area,
and many more outlets. Undercover footage influenced two legislative
initiatives aimed at banning driftnets: a California state bill and a federal bill.
A 2020 investigation focusing on the live export
industry in Brazil revealed animals being confined in large ships in
cramped conditions for weeks on end, often lying in and covered in their
own feces. After arriving at their destination in the Middle East,
cranes are used to hoist sick and injured animals out by their limbs. At
the slaughterhouses, they are often slashed with knives and left to
bleed to death, limbs are hacked off and throats stabbed.
Current programs
Exposés
MFA
whistleblowers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil have
documented animals intensively confined by the tens of thousands in
sheds, mutilated without pain relief, beaten with metal bars, stabbed
with knives, slammed into equipment, and ground up alive in industrial
macerators.
Corporate engagement
MFA
encourages companies to adopt animal welfare policies and works with
large institutions to reduce meat, dairy, and eggs served. After two MFA
investigations inside factory farms supplying Perdue, the company
implemented an animal welfare policy that will reduce suffering for
nearly 680 million birds a year. MFA has pushed hundreds of companies to
implement reforms.
Legal advocacy
MFA's
legal team defends whistleblower protections, holds animal abusers
accountable, and champions laws that protect animals. The organization's
work has resulted in new legal protections for animals; raids of farms
by law enforcement; closure of facilities; criminal prosecutions of farm
owners, managers, and employees for animal abuse; and defeat of
anti-whistleblower legislation.
Social impact
Through
social media and outreach, MFA raises public awareness about the
suffering of farmed animals and promotes compassionate food choices. The
organization runs ChooseVeg.com, a website dedicated to making
plant-based eating easier and more accessible and offers one-on-one
support for people interested in eating more plant-based foods.
Events
Hidden Heroes Gala
MFA hosts the Hidden Heroes Gala each year in downtown Los Angeles. The formal event honors MFA investigators and their supporters.
Circle V, the first all-vegan music festival celebrating animal rights, launched in 2016. A second event followed in 2017. Thousands showed up to enjoy vegan food vendors, retail pop-ups, and prominent speakers during the day.
At night, musicians including Moby and Goldenvoice took the stage at
the Fonda Theater in Hollywood. All proceeds from the event benefit MFA.
A girl showing signs of fear and anxiety in an uncertain environment
Fear is an emotion induced by perceived danger or threat, which causes physiological changes and ultimately behavioral
changes, such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat.
Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat (also known as the fight-or-flight response), which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis.
In humans and other animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus, fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate. An irrational fear is called a phobia.
Fear is closely related to the emotion anxiety, which occurs as the result of threats that are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable. The fear response serves survival by engendering appropriate behavioral responses, so it has been preserved throughout evolution.
Sociological and organizational research also suggests that
individuals' fears are not solely dependent on their nature but are also
shaped by their social relations and culture, which guide their
understanding of when and how much fear to feel.
Physiological signs
"The Man Made Mad with Fear", a painting by Gustave Courbet.
Many physiological changes in the body are associated with fear, summarized as the fight-or-flight response. An innate response for coping with danger, it works by accelerating the breathing rate (hyperventilation),
heart rate, vasoconstriction of the peripheral blood vessels leading to
blood pooling, increasing muscle tension including the muscles
attached to each hair follicle to contract and causing "goosebumps", or
more clinically, piloerection (making a cold person warmer or a frightened animal look more impressive), sweating, increased blood glucose (hyperglycemia),
increased serum calcium, increase in white blood cells called
neutrophilic leukocytes, alertness leading to sleep disturbance and
"butterflies in the stomach" (dyspepsia). This primitive mechanism may help an organism survive by either running away or fighting the danger. With the series of physiological changes, the consciousness realizes an emotion of fear.
Causes
An influential categorization of stimuli causing fear was proposed by Gray; namely, intensity, novelty, special evolutionary dangers, stimuli arising during social interaction, and conditioned stimuli. Another categorization was proposed by Archer, who, besides conditioned fear stimuli, categorized fear-evoking (as well as aggression-evoking) stimuli into three groups; namely, pain, novelty, and frustration, although he also described “looming,”
which refers to an object rapidly moving towards the visual sensors of a
subject, and can be categorized as “intensity.” Russell
described a more functional categorization of fear-evoking stimuli, in
which for instance novelty is a variable affecting more than one
category: 1) Predator stimuli (including movement, suddenness,
proximity, but also learned and innate predator stimuli); 2) Physical
environmental dangers (including intensity and heights); 3) Stimuli
associated with increased risk of predation and other dangers (including
novelty, openness, illumination, and being alone); 4) Stimuli stemming
from conspecifics (including novelty, movement, and spacing behavior);
5) Species-predictable fear stimuli and experience (special evolutionary
dangers); and 6) Fear stimuli that are not species predictable
(conditioned fear stimuli).
Innate fear
A prisoner at Abu Graib shows fear of a US army dog during prisoner abuse.
Although many fears are learned, the capacity to fear is part of human nature. Many studies
have found that certain fears (e.g. animals, heights) are much more
common than others (e.g. flowers, clouds). These fears are also easier
to induce in the laboratory. This phenomenon is known as preparedness.
Because early humans that were quick to fear dangerous situations were
more likely to survive and reproduce, preparedness is theorized to be a
genetic effect that is the result of natural selection.
From an evolutionary psychology perspective, different fears may be different adaptations
that have been useful in our evolutionary past. They may have developed
during different time periods. Some fears, such as fear of heights, may
be common to all mammals and developed during the mesozoic period. Other fears, such as fear of snakes, may be common to all simians and developed during the cenozoic time period. Still others, such as fear of mice and insects, may be unique to humans and developed during the paleolithic and neolithic time periods (when mice and insects become important carriers of infectious diseases and harmful for crops and stored foods).
Learned fear
Animals and humans innovate specific fears as a result of learning. This has been studied in psychology as fear conditioning, beginning with John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment
in 1920, which was inspired after observing a child with an irrational
fear of dogs. In this study, an 11-month-old boy was conditioned to fear
a white rat in the laboratory. The fear became generalized to include
other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, dog, and even a ball of
cotton.
Fear can be learned by experiencing or watching a frightening traumatic accident. For example, if a child falls into a well and struggles to get out, he or she may develop a fear of wells, heights (acrophobia), enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), or water (aquaphobia).
There are studies looking at areas of the brain that are affected in
relation to fear. When looking at these areas (such as the amygdala),
it was proposed that a person learns to fear regardless of whether they
themselves have experienced trauma, or if they have observed the fear
in others. In a study completed by Andreas Olsson, Katherine I. Nearing
and Elizabeth A. Phelps, the amygdala were affected both when subjects
observed someone else being submitted to an aversive event, knowing that
the same treatment awaited themselves, and when subjects were
subsequently placed in a fear-provoking situation. This suggests that fear can develop in both conditions, not just simply from personal history.
Fear is affected by cultural and historical context. For example, in the early 20th century, many Americans feared polio, a disease that can lead to paralysis. There are consistent cross-cultural differences in how people respond to fear. Display rules affect how likely people are to express the facial expression of fear and other emotions.
Fear of victimization is a function of perceived risk and seriousness.
Fear of the unknown or irrational fear is caused by negative thinking (worry) which arises from anxiety accompanied by a subjective sense of apprehension or dread.
Irrational fear shares a common neural pathway with other fears, a
pathway that engages the nervous system to mobilize bodily resources in
the face of danger or threat. Many people are scared of the "unknown".
The irrational fear can branch out to many areas such as the hereafter,
the next ten years or even tomorrow. Chronic irrational fear has
deleterious effects since the elicitor stimulus is commonly absent or
perceived from delusions. Such fear can create comorbidity with the anxiety disorder umbrella.
Being scared may cause people to experience anticipatory fear of what
may lie ahead rather than planning and evaluating for the same. For
example, "continuation of scholarly education" is perceived by many
educators as a risk that may cause them fear and stress, and they would rather teach things they've been taught than go and do research. That can lead to habits such as laziness and procrastination.
The ambiguity of situations that tend to be uncertain and
unpredictable can cause anxiety in addition to other psychological and
physical problems in some populations; especially those who engage it
constantly, for example, in war-ridden places or in places of conflict,
terrorism, abuse, etc. Poor parenting
that instills fear can also debilitate a child's psyche development or
personality. For example, parents tell their children not to talk to
strangers in order to protect them. In school, they would be motivated
to not show fear in talking with strangers, but to be assertive and also
aware of the risks and the environment in which it takes place.
Ambiguous and mixed messages like this can affect their self-esteem and
self-confidence. Researchers say talking to strangers isn't something to
be thwarted but allowed in a parent's presence if required. Developing a sense of equanimity
to handle various situations is often advocated as an antidote to
irrational fear and as an essential skill by a number of ancient
philosophies.
Fear of the unknown (FOTU) "may be a, or possibly the, fundamental fear".
In an estimate of what Americans fear the most, book author Bill
Tancer analyzed the most frequent online queries that involved the
phrase, "fear of..." following the assumption that people tend to seek
information on the issues that concern them the most. His top ten list
of fears published 2008 consisted of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, failure, and driving.
Fear behavior
Although
fear behavior varies from species to species, it is often divided into
two main categories; namely, avoidance/flight and immobility. To these, different researchers have added different categories, such as threat display and attack, protective responses (including startle and looming responses), defensive burying, and social responses (including alarm vocalizations and submission). Finally, immobility is often divided into freezing and tonic immobility.
The decision as to which particular fear behavior to perform is
determined by the level of fear as well as the specific context, such as
environmental characteristics (escape route present, distance to
refuge), the presence of a discrete and localized threat, the distance
between threat and subject, threat characteristics (speed, size,
directness of approach), the characteristics of the subject under threat
(size, physical condition, speed, degree of crypsis,
protective morphological structures), social conditions (group size),
and the amount of experience with the type of the threat.
Mechanism
Often laboratory studies with rats are conducted to examine the acquisition and extinction of conditioned fear responses. In 2004, researchers conditioned rats (Rattus norvegicus) to fear a certain stimulus, through electric shock.
The researchers were able to then cause an extinction of this
conditioned fear, to a point that no medications or drugs were able to
further aid in the extinction process. However, the rats did show signs
of avoidance learning, not fear, but simply avoiding the area that
brought pain to the test rats. The avoidance learning of rats is seen as
a conditioned response, and therefore the behavior can be unconditioned, as supported by the earlier research.
Species-specific defense reactions (SSDRs) or avoidance learning
in nature is the specific tendency to avoid certain threats or stimuli,
it is how animals survive in the wild. Humans and animals both share
these species-specific defense reactions, such as the flight-or-fight,
which also include pseudo-aggression, fake or intimidating aggression
and freeze response to threats, which is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.
These SSDRs are learned very quickly through social interactions
between others of the same species, other species, and interaction with
the environment.
These acquired sets of reactions or responses are not easily forgotten.
The animal that survives is the animal that already knows what to fear
and how to avoid this threat. An example in humans is the reaction to
the sight of a snake, many jump backwards before cognitively realizing
what they are jumping away from, and in some cases, it is a stick rather
than a snake.
As with many functions of the brain, there are various regions of
the brain involved in deciphering fear in humans and other nonhuman
species. The amygdala communicates both directions between the prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, the sensory cortex, the hippocampus, thalamus, septum, and the brainstem. The amygdala plays an important role in SSDR, such as the ventral amygdalofugal, which is essential for associative learning,
and SSDRs are learned through interaction with the environment and
others of the same species. An emotional response is created only after
the signals have been relayed between the different regions of the
brain, and activating the sympathetic nervous systems; which controls
the flight, fight, freeze, fright, and faint response. Often a damaged amygdala can cause impairment in the recognition of fear (like the human case of patient S.M.).
This impairment can cause different species to lack the sensation of
fear, and often can become overly confident, confronting larger peers,
or walking up to predatory creatures.
Robert C. Bolles
(1970), a researcher at University of Washington, wanted to understand
species-specific defense reactions and avoidance learning among animals,
but found that the theories of avoidance learning and the tools that
were used to measure this tendency were out of touch with the natural
world. He theorized the species-specific defense reaction (SSDR).
There are three forms of SSDRs: flight, fight (pseudo-aggression), or
freeze. Even domesticated animals have SSDRs, and in those moments it is
seen that animals revert to atavistic standards and become "wild"
again. Dr. Bolles states that responses are often dependent on the
reinforcement of a safety signal, and not the aversive conditioned
stimuli. This safety signal can be a source of feedback or even stimulus
change. Intrinsic feedback or information coming from within, muscle
twitches, increased heart rate, are seen to be more important in SSDRs
than extrinsic feedback, stimuli that comes from the external
environment. Dr. Bolles found that most creatures have some intrinsic
set of fears, to help assure survival of the species. Rats will run away
from any shocking event, and pigeons will flap their wings harder when
threatened. The wing flapping in pigeons and the scattered running of
rats are considered species-specific defense reactions or behaviors.
Bolles believed that SSDRs are conditioned through Pavlovian
conditioning, and not operant conditioning; SSDRs arise from the
association between the environmental stimuli and adverse events. Michael S. Fanselow
conducted an experiment, to test some specific defense reactions, he
observed that rats in two different shock situations responded
differently, based on instinct or defensive topography, rather than
contextual information.
Species-specific defense responses are created out of fear, and are essential for survival. Rats that lack the gene stathmin show no avoidance learning, or a lack of fear, and will often walk directly up to cats and be eaten. Animals use these SSDRs to continue living, to help increase their chance of fitness,
by surviving long enough to procreate. Humans and animals alike have
created fear to know what should be avoided, and this fear can be
learned through association
with others in the community, or learned through personal experience
with a creature, species, or situations that should be avoided. SSDRs
are an evolutionary adaptation that has been seen in many species
throughout the world including rats, chimpanzees, prairie dogs, and even humans, an adaptation created to help individual creatures survive in a hostile world.
Fear learning changes across the lifetime due to natural developmental changes in the brain. This includes changes in the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.
Neurocircuit in mammals
The thalamus collects sensory data from the senses
Sensory cortex receives data from the thalamus and interprets it
Sensory cortex organizes information for dissemination to the
hypothalamus (fight or flight), amygdalae (fear), hippocampus (memory)
The brain structures that are the center of most neurobiological events associated with fear are the two amygdalae, located behind the pituitary gland. Each amygdala is part of a circuitry of fear learning.
They are essential for proper adaptation to stress and specific
modulation of emotional learning memory. In the presence of a
threatening stimulus, the amygdalae generate the secretion of hormones
that influence fear and aggression.
Once a response to the stimulus in the form of fear or aggression
commences, the amygdalae may elicit the release of hormones into the
body to put the person into a state of alertness, in which they are
ready to move, run, fight, etc. This defensive response is generally
referred to in physiology as the fight-or-flight response regulated by the hypothalamus, part of the limbic system.
Once the person is in safe mode, meaning that there are no longer any
potential threats surrounding them, the amygdalae will send this
information to the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) where it is stored for similar future situations, which is known as memory consolidation.
Some of the hormones involved during the state of fight-or-flight include epinephrine, which regulates heart rate and metabolism as well as dilating blood vessels and air passages, norepinephrine increasing heart rate, blood flow to skeletal muscles and the release of glucose from energy stores, and cortisol which increases blood sugar, increases circulating neutrophilic leukocytes, calcium amongst other things.
After a situation which incites fear occurs, the amygdalae and hippocampus record the event through synaptic plasticity. The stimulation to the hippocampus will cause the individual to remember many details surrounding the situation.
Plasticity and memory formation in the amygdala are generated by
activation of the neurons in the region. Experimental data supports the
notion that synaptic plasticity of the neurons leading to the lateral
amygdalae occurs with fear conditioning. In some cases, this forms permanent fear responses such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a phobia. MRI and fMRI scans have shown that the amygdalae in individuals diagnosed with such disorders including bipolar or panic disorder are larger and wired for a higher level of fear.
Pathogens can suppress amygdala activity. Rats infected with the toxoplasmosis
parasite become less fearful of cats, sometimes even seeking out their
urine-marked areas. This behavior often leads to them being eaten by
cats. The parasite then reproduces within the body of the cat. There is
evidence that the parasite concentrates itself in the amygdala of
infected rats.
In a separate experiment, rats with lesions in the amygdala did not
express fear or anxiety towards unwanted stimuli. These rats pulled on
levers supplying food that sometimes sent out electrical shocks. While
they learned to avoid pressing on them, they did not distance themselves
from these shock-inducing levers.
Several brain structures other than the amygdalae have also been
observed to be activated when individuals are presented with fearful vs.
neutral faces, namely the occipitocerebellar regions including the fusiform gyrus and the inferior parietal / superior temporal gyri. Fearful eyes, brows and mouth seem to separately reproduce these brain responses.
Scientists from Zurich studies show that the hormone oxytocin related
to stress and sex reduces activity in your brain fear center.
Pheromones and why fear can be contagious
In
threatening situations, insects, aquatic organisms, birds, reptiles,
and mammals emit odorant substances, initially called alarm substances,
which are chemical signals now called alarm pheromones.
This is to defend themselves and at the same time to inform members of
the same species of danger and leads to observable behavior change like
freezing, defensive behavior, or dispersion depending on circumstances
and species. For example, stressed rats release odorant cues that cause
other rats to move away from the source of the signal.
After the discovery of pheromones in 1959, alarm pheromones were first described in 1968 in ants and earthworms, and four years later also found in mammals, both mice and rats.
Over the next two decades, identification and characterization of these
pheromones proceeded in all manner of insects and sea animals,
including fish, but it was not until 1990 that more insight into
mammalian alarm pheromones was gleaned.
Earlier, in 1985, a link between odors released by stressed rats and pain perception was discovered: unstressed rats exposed to these odors developed opioid-mediated analgesia. In 1997, researchers found that bees became less responsive to pain after they had been stimulated with isoamyl acetate, a chemical smelling of banana, and a component of bee alarm pheromone. The experiment also showed that the bees' fear-induced pain tolerance was mediated by an endorphine.
By using the forced swimming test in rats as a model of fear-induction, the first mammalian "alarm substance" was found.
In 1991, this "alarm substance" was shown to fulfill criteria for
pheromones: well-defined behavioral effect, species specificity, minimal
influence of experience and control for nonspecific arousal. Rat
activity testing with the alarm pheromone, and their
preference/avoidance for odors from cylinders containing the pheromone,
showed that the pheromone had very low volatility.
In 1993 a connection between alarm chemosignals in mice and their immune response was found. Pheromone production in mice was found to be associated with or mediated by the pituitary gland in 1994.
In 2004, it was demonstrated that rats' alarm pheromones had
different effects on the "recipient" rat (the rat perceiving the
pheromone) depending which body region they were released from:
Pheromone production from the face modified behavior in the recipient
rat, e.g. caused sniffing or movement, whereas pheromone secreted from
the rat's anal area induced autonomic nervous system stress responses, like an increase in core body temperature. Further experiments showed that when a rat perceived alarm pheromones, it increased its defensive and risk assessment behavior, and its acoustic startle reflex was enhanced.
It was not until 2011 that a link between severe pain,
neuroinflammation and alarm pheromones release in rats was found: real
time RT-PCR analysis of rat brain tissues indicated that shocking the footpad of a rat increased its production of proinflammatory cytokines in deep brain structures, namely of IL-1β, heteronuclear Corticotropin-releasing hormone and c-fos mRNA expressions in both the paraventricular nucleus and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and it increased stress hormone levels in plasma (corticosterone).
The neurocircuit for how rats perceive alarm pheromones was shown to be related to the hypothalamus, brainstem, and amygdalae,
all of which are evolutionary ancient structures deep inside or in the
case of the brainstem underneath the brain away from the cortex, and
involved in the fight-or-flight response, as is the case in humans.
Faulty development of odor discrimination impairs the perception of pheromones and pheromone-related behavior, like aggressive behavior and mating in male rats: The enzyme Mitogen-activated protein kinase 7
(MAPK7) has been implicated in regulating the development of the
olfactory bulb and odor discrimination and it is highly expressed in
developing rat brains, but absent in most regions of adult rat brains. Conditional deletion
of the MAPK7gene in mouse neural stem cells impairs several
pheromone-mediated behaviors, including aggression and mating in male
mice. These behavior impairments were not caused by a reduction in the
level of testosterone, by physical immobility, by heightened fear or
anxiety or by depression. Using mouse urine as a natural
pheromone-containing solution, it has been shown that the impairment was
associated with defective detection of related pheromones, and with
changes in their inborn preference for pheromones related to sexual and
reproductive activities.
Lastly, alleviation of an acute fear response because a friendly peer (or in biological language: an affiliative conspecific) tends and befriends is called "social buffering". The term is in analogy to the 1985 "buffering" hypothesis in psychology, where social support has been proven to mitigate the negative health effects of alarm pheromone mediated distress.
The role of a "social pheromone" is suggested by the recent discovery
that olfactory signals are responsible in mediating the "social
buffering" in male rats.
"Social buffering" was also observed to mitigate the conditioned fear
responses of honeybees. A bee colony exposed to an environment of high
threat of predation did not show increased aggression and
aggressive-like gene expression patterns in individual bees, but
decreased aggression. That the bees did not simply habituate to threats is suggested by the fact that the disturbed colonies also decreased their foraging.
Biologists have proposed in 2012 that fear pheromones evolved as
molecules of "keystone significance", a term coined in analogy to keystone species. Pheromones may determine species compositions and affect rates of energy and material exchange in an ecological community. Thus pheromones generate structure in a food web and play critical roles in maintaining natural systems.
Fear pheromones in humans
Evidence
of chemosensory alarm signals in humans has emerged slowly: Although
alarm pheromones have not been physically isolated and their chemical
structures have not been identified in humans so far, there is evidence
for their presence. Androstadienone,
for example, a steroidal, endogenous odorant, is a pheromone candidate
found in human sweat, axillary hair and plasma. The closely related
compound androstenone
is involved in communicating dominance, aggression or competition; sex
hormone influences on androstenone perception in humans showed a high
testosterone level related to heightened androstenone sensitivity in
men, a high testosterone level related to unhappiness in response to androstenone in men, and a high estradiol level related to disliking of androstenone in women.
A German study from 2006 showed when anxiety-induced versus
exercise-induced human sweat from a dozen people was pooled and offered
to seven study participants, of five able to olfactorily distinguish
exercise-induced sweat from room air, three could also distinguish
exercise-induced sweat from anxiety induced sweat. The acoustic startle reflex response to a sound when sensing anxiety sweat was larger than when sensing exercise-induced sweat, as measured by electromyography
analysis of the orbital muscle, which is responsible for the eyeblink
component. This showed for the first time that fear chemosignals can
modulate the startle reflex in humans without emotional mediation; fear
chemosignals primed the recipient's "defensive behavior" prior to the
subjects' conscious attention on the acoustic startle reflex level.
In analogy to the social buffering of rats and honeybees in response to chemosignals, induction of empathy by "smelling anxiety" of another person has been found in humans.
A study from 2013 provided brain imaging evidence that human responses to fear chemosignals may be gender-specific.
Researchers collected alarm-induced sweat and exercise-induced sweat
from donors extracted it, pooled it and presented it to 16 unrelated
people undergoing functional brain MRI.
While stress-induced sweat from males produced a comparably strong
emotional response in both females and males, stress-induced sweat from
females produced markedly stronger arousal in women than in men.
Statistical tests pinpointed this gender-specificity to the right
amygdala and strongest in the superficial nuclei. Since no significant
differences were found in the olfactory bulb,
the response to female fear-induced signals is likely based on
processing the meaning, i.e. on the emotional level, rather than the
strength of chemosensory cues from each gender, i.e. the perceptual
level.
An approach-avoidance task
was set up where volunteers seeing either an angry or a happy cartoon
face on a computer screen pushed away or pulled toward them a joystick
as fast as possible. Volunteers smelling androstadienone, masked with
clove oil scent responded faster, especially to angry faces than those
smelling clove oil only, which was interpreted as
androstadienone-related activation of the fear system. A potential mechanism of action is, that androstadienone alters the "emotional face processing". Androstadienone is known to influence the activity of the fusiform gyrus which is relevant for face recognition.
Cognitive-consistency theory
Cognitive-consistency
theories assume that "when two or more simultaneously active cognitive
structures are logically inconsistent, arousal is increased, which
activates processes with the expected consequence of increasing
consistency and decreasing arousal."
In this context, it has been proposed that fear behavior is caused by
an inconsistency between a preferred, or expected, situation and the
actually perceived situation, and functions to remove the inconsistent
stimulus from the perceptual field, for instance by fleeing or hiding,
thereby resolving the inconsistency. This approach puts fear in a broader perspective, also involving aggression and curiosity.
When the inconsistency between perception and expectancy is small,
learning as a result of curiosity reduces inconsistency by updating
expectancy to match perception. If the inconsistency is larger, fear or
aggressive behavior may be employed to alter the perception in order to
make it match expectancy, depending on the size of the inconsistency as
well as the specific context. Aggressive behavior is assumed to alter
perception by forcefully manipulating it into matching the expected
situation, while in some cases thwarted escape may also trigger
aggressive behavior in an attempt to remove the thwarting stimulus.
Research
In
order to improve our understanding of the neural and behavioral
mechanisms of adaptive and maladaptive fear, investigators use a variety
of translational animal models.
These models are particularly important for research that would be too
invasive for human studies. Rodents such as mice and rats are common
animal models, but other species are used. Certain aspects of fear
research still requires more research such as sex, gender, and age
differences.
Models
These animal models include, but not limited to, fear conditioning,
predator-based psychosocial stress, single prolonged stress, chronic
stress models, inescapable foot/tail shocks, immobilization or
restraint, and stress enhanced fear learning. While the stress and fear
paradigms differ between the models, they tend to involve aspects such
as acquisition, generalization, extinction, cognitive regulation, and
reconsolidation.
Fear Conditioning
Fear conditioning, also known as Pavlovian or Classical conditioning,
is a process of learning that involves pairing a neutral stimulus with
an unconditional stimulus (US).
A neutral stimulus is something like a bell, tone, or room that doesn't
illicit a response normally where a US is a stimulus that results in a
natural or unconditioned response (UR - in Pavlov's famous experiment
the neutral stimulus is a bell and the US would be food with the dog's
salvation being the UR. Pairing the neutral stimulus and the US results
in the UR occurring not only with the US but also the neutral stimulus.
When this occurs the neutral stimulus is referred to as the conditional
stimulus (CS) and the response the conditional response (CR). In the
fear conditioning model of Pavlovian conditioning the US is an aversive
stimulus such as a shock, tone, or unpleasant odor.
Predator-based Psychosocial Stress
Predator-based psychosocial stress (PPS) involves a more naturalistic approach to fear learning.
Predators such as a cat, a snake, or urine from a fox or cat are used
along with other stressors such as immobilization or restraint in order
to generate instinctual fear responses.
Chronic Stress Models
Chronic stress models include chronic variable stress, chronic social defeat, and chronic mild stress. These models are often used to study how long-term or prolonged stress/pain can alter fear learning and disorders.
Single Prolonged Stress
Single prolonged stress (SPS) is a fear model that is often used to study PTSD.
It's paradigm involves multiple stressors such as immobilization, a
force swim, and exposure to ether delivered concurrently to the subject.
This is used to study non-naturalistic, uncontrollable situations that
can cause a maladaptive fear responses that is seen in a lot of anxiety
and traumatic based disorders.
Stress Enhanced Fear Learning
Stress
enhanced fear learning (SEFL) like SPS is often used to study the
maladaptive fear learning involved in PTSD and other traumatic based
disorders.
SEFL involves a single extreme stressor such as a large number of
footshocks simulating a single traumatic stressor that somehow enhances
and alters future fear learning.
Management
Pharmaceutical
A drug treatment for fear conditioning and phobias via the amygdalae is the use of glucocorticoids.
In one study, glucocorticoid receptors in the central nuclei of the
amygdalae were disrupted in order to better understand the mechanisms of
fear and fear conditioning. The glucocorticoid receptors were inhibited
using lentiviral vectors containing Cre-recombinase injected into mice.
Results showed that disruption of the glucocorticoid receptors
prevented conditioned fear behavior. The mice were subjected to auditory
cues which caused them to freeze normally. However, a reduction of
freezing was observed in the mice that had inhibited glucocorticoid
receptors.
Psychology
Cognitive behavioral therapy has been successful in helping people overcome their fear. Because fear is more complex than just forgetting or deleting memories,
an active and successful approach involves people repeatedly
confronting their fears. By confronting their fears in a safe manner a
person can suppress the "fear-triggering memories" or stimuli.
Exposure therapy has known to have helped up to 90% of people with specific phobias to significantly decrease their fear over time.
Another psychological treatment is systematic desensitization,
which is a type of behavior therapy used to completely remove the fear
or produce a disgusted response to this fear and replace it. The
replacement that occurs will be relaxation and will occur through
conditioning. Through conditioning treatments, muscle tensioning will
lessen and deep breathing techniques will aid in de-tensioning.
Other treatments
There
are other methods for treating or coping with one's fear, such as
writing down rational thoughts regarding fears. Journal entries are a
healthy method of expressing one's fears without compromising safety or
causing uncertainty. Another suggestion is a fear ladder. To create a
fear ladder, one must write down all of their fears and score them on a
scale of one to ten. Next, the person addresses their phobia, starting
with the lowest number.
Finding solace in religion is another method to cope with one's
fear. Having something to answer your questions regarding your fears,
such as, what happens after death or if there is an afterlife, can help
mitigate one's fear of death because there is no room for uncertainty as
their questions are answered. Religion offers a method of being able to
understand and make sense of one's fears rather than ignore them.
Inability to experience fear
People who have damage to their amygdalae, which can be caused by a rare genetic disease known as Urbach–Wiethe disease,
are unable to experience fear. The disease destroys both amygdalae in
late childhood. Since the discovery of the disease, there have only been
400 recorded cases. This is not debilitating; however, a lack of fear
can allow someone to get into a dangerous situation they otherwise would
have avoided. For example, those without fear would approach a known
venomous snake while those with fear intact, would typically try to
avoid it.
The fear of
the end of life and its existence is, in other words, the fear of
death. The fear of death ritualized the lives of our ancestors. These
rituals were designed to reduce that fear; they helped collect the
cultural ideas that we now have in the present.
These rituals also helped preserve the cultural ideas. The results and
methods of human existence had been changing at the same time that
social formation was changing.
When people are faced with their own thoughts of death, they
either accept that they are dying or will die because they have lived a
full life or they will experience fear. A theory was developed in
response to this, which is called the Terror Management Theory. The
theory states that a person's cultural worldviews (religion, values,
etc.) will mitigate the terror associated with the fear of death through
avoidance. To help manage their terror, they find solace in their
death-denying beliefs, such as their religion. Another way people cope
with their death related fears is pushing any thoughts of death into the
future or by avoiding these thoughts all together through distractions.
Although there are methods for one coping with the terror associated
with their fear of death, not everyone suffers from these same
uncertainties. People who have lived a full life, typically do not fear
death because they believe that they have lived their life to the
fullest.
Fear of death
Death anxiety is multidimensional; it covers "fears related to one's
own death, the death of others, fear of the unknown after death, fear of
obliteration, and fear of the dying process, which includes fear of a
slow death and a painful death".
Death anxiety is one's uncertainty to dying. However, there is a more
severe form of having a fear of death, which is known as Thanatophobia,
which is anxiety over death that becomes debilitating or keeps a person
from living their life.
The Yale philosopher Shelly Kagan examined fear of death in a 2007 Yale open course
by examining the following questions: Is fear of death a reasonable
appropriate response? What conditions are required and what are
appropriate conditions for feeling fear of death? What is meant by fear,
and how much fear is appropriate? According to Kagan for fear in
general to make sense, three conditions should be met:
the object of fear needs to be "something bad"
there needs to be a non-negligible chance that the bad state of affairs will happen
there needs to be some uncertainty about the bad state of affairs
The amount of fear should be appropriate to the size of "the bad". If
the three conditions are not met, fear is an inappropriate emotion. He
argues, that death does not meet the first two criteria, even if death
is a "deprivation of good things" and even if one believes in a painful
afterlife. Because death is certain, it also does not meet the third
criterion, but he grants that the unpredictability of when one dies may be cause to a sense of fear.
In a 2003 study of 167 women and 121 men, aged 65–87, low self-efficacy
predicted fear of the unknown after death and fear of dying for women
and men better than demographics, social support, and physical health.
Fear of death was measured by a "Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale"
which included the 8 subscales Fear of Dying, Fear of the Dead, Fear of
Being Destroyed, Fear for Significant Others, Fear of the Unknown, Fear
of Conscious Death, Fear for the Body After Death, and Fear of Premature
Death. In hierarchical multiple regression
analysis, the most potent predictors of death fears were low "spiritual
health efficacy", defined as beliefs relating to one's perceived
ability to generate spiritually based faith and inner strength, and low
"instrumental efficacy", defined as beliefs relating to one's perceived
ability to manage activities of daily living.
Psychologists have tested the hypotheses that fear of death
motivates religious commitment, and that assurances about an afterlife
alleviate the fear; however, empirical research on this topic has been
equivocal.
Religiosity can be related to fear of death when the afterlife is
portrayed as time of punishment. "Intrinsic religiosity", as opposed to
mere "formal religious involvement", has been found to be negatively
correlated with death anxiety.
In a 1976 study of people of various Christian denominations, those who
were most firm in their faith, who attended religious services weekly,
were the least afraid of dying. The survey found a negative correlation
between fear of death and "religious concern".
In a 2006 study of white, Christian men and women the hypothesis
was tested that traditional, church-centered religiousness and
de-institutionalized spiritual seeking are ways of approaching fear of
death in old age. Both religiousness and spirituality were related to
positive psychosocial functioning, but only church-centered
religiousness protected subjects against the fear of death.
Religion
From a theological perspective, the word "fear" encompasses more than
simple fear. Robert B. Strimple says that fear includes the "...
convergence of awe, reverence, adoration...". Some translations of the Bible, such as the New International Version, sometimes replace the word "fear" with "reverence".
Fear in religion can be seen throughout the years, however, the
most prominent example would be The Crusades. Pope Urban II allowed for
Christian mercenary troops to be sent on a mission in order to recover
the Holy Lands from the Muslims. However, the message was misinterpreted
and as a result, innocent people were slaughtered. Although the
Crusades were meant to stay between the Muslims and the Christians, the
hate spread onto the Jewish culture. Jewish people who feared for their
lives, gave into the forced conversion of Christianity because they
believed this would secure their safety. Other Jewish people feared
betraying their God by conceding to a conversion, and instead, secured
their own fate, which was death.
Manipulation
Fear may be politically and culturally manipulated to persuade
citizenry of ideas which would otherwise be widely rejected or dissuade
citizenry from ideas which would otherwise be widely supported. In
contexts of disasters, nation-states manage the fear not only to provide
their citizens with an explanation about the event or blaming some
minorities, but also to adjust their previous beliefs.
Fear can alter how a person thinks or reacts to situations
because fear has the power to inhibit one's rational way of thinking. As
a result, people who do not experience fear, are able to use fear as a
tool to manipulate others. People who are experiencing fear, seek
preservation through safety and can be manipulated by a person who is
there to provide that safety that is being sought after. "When we're
afraid, a manipulator can talk us out of the truth we see right in front
of us. Words become more real than reality"
By this, a manipulator is able to use our fear to manipulate us out the
truth and instead make us believe and trust in their truth. Politicians
are notorious for using fear to manipulate the people into supporting
their will through keywords and key phrases such as "it is for your
safety," or "it is for the safety of this country."
Fear is found and reflected in mythology and folklore as well as in works of fiction such as novels and films.
Works of dystopian and (post)apocalyptic fiction convey the fears and anxieties of societies.
The fear of the world's end is about as old as civilization itself. In a 1967 study, Frank Kermode suggests that the failure of religious prophecies led to a shift in how society apprehends this ancient mode. Scientific and critical thought supplanting religious and mythical thought
as well as a public emancipation may be the cause of eschatology
becoming replaced by more realistic scenarios. Such might constructively
provoke discussion and steps to be taken to prevent depicted catastrophes.
The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was
is a German fairy tale dealing with the topic of not knowing fear.
Many stories also include characters who fear the antagonist of the
plot. One important characteristic of historical and mythical heroes across cultures is to be fearless in the face of big and often lethal enemies.
Athletics
In the world of athletics, fear is often used as a means of motivation to not fail.
This situation involves using fear in a way that increases the chances
of a positive outcome. In this case, the fear that is being created is
initially a cognitive state to the receiver.
This initial state is what generates the first response of the athlete,
this response generates a possibility of fight or flight reaction by
the athlete (receiver), which in turn will increase or decrease the
possibility of success or failure in the certain situation for the
athlete.
The amount of time that the athlete has to determine this decision is
small but it is still enough time for the receiver to make a
determination through cognition.
Even though the decision is made quickly, the decision is determined
through past events that have been experienced by the athlete.
The results of these past events will determine how the athlete will
make his cognitive decision in the split second that he or she has.
Fear of failure as described above has been studied frequently in
the field of sport psychology. Many scholars have tried to determine
how often fear of failure is triggered within athletes, as well as what
personalities of athletes most often choose to use this type of
motivation. Studies have also been conducted to determine the success
rate of this method of motivation.
Murray's Exploration in Personal (1938) was one of the first
studies that actually identified fear of failure as an actual motive to
avoid failure or to achieve success. His studies suggested that
inavoidance, the need to avoid failure, was found in many college-aged
men during the time of his research in 1938.
This was a monumental finding in the field of psychology because it
allowed other researchers to better clarify how fear of failure can
actually be a determinant of creating achievement goals as well as how
it could be used in the actual act of achievement.
In the context of sport, a model was created by R.S. Lazarus in
1991 that uses the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion.
It holds that Fear of Failure
results when beliefs or cognitive schemas about aversive consequences of
failing are activated by situations in which failure is possible. These
belief systems predispose the individual to make appraisals of threat
and experience the state anxiety that is associated with Fear of Failure
in evaluative situations.
Another study was done in 2001 by Conroy, Poczwardowski, and Henschen
that created five aversive consequences of failing that have been
repeated over time. The five categories include (a) experiencing shame
and embarrassment, (b) devaluing one's self-estimate, (c) having an
uncertain future, (d) important others losing interest, (e) upsetting
important others.
These five categories can help one infer the possibility of an
individual to associate failure with one of these threat categories,
which will lead them to experiencing fear of failure.
In summary, the two studies that were done above created a more
precise definition of fear of failure, which is "a dispositional
tendency to experience apprehension and anxiety in evaluative situations
because individuals have learned that failure is associated with
aversive consequences".
Culture of fear (or climate of fear) is the concept that people may incite fear in the general public to achieve political or workplace goals through emotional bias; it was developed as a sociological framework by Frank Furedi and has been more recently popularized by the American sociologist Barry Glassner.
In politics
Nazi leader Hermann Göring explains how people can be made fearful and to support a war they otherwise would oppose:
The people don't want war,
but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is
easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
In her book State and Opposition in Military Brazil, Maria Helena Moreira Alves found a "culture of fear" was implemented as part of political repression since 1964. She used the term to describe methods implemented by the national security apparatus of Brazil in its effort to equate political participation with risk of arrest and torture.
Cassação (English: cassation) is one such mechanism used to
punish members of the military by legally declaring them dead. This
enhanced the potential for political control through intensifying the
culture of fear as a deterrent to opposition.
Alves found the changes of the National Security Law of 1969, as beginning the use of "economic exploitation, physical repression, political control, and strict censorship" to establish a "culture of fear" in Brazil.
The three psychological components of the culture of fear included
silence through censorship, sense of isolation, and a "generalized
belief that all channels of opposition were closed." A "feeling of
complete hopelessness," prevailed, in addition to "withdrawal from opposition activity."
Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the use of the term War on Terror
was intended to generate a culture of fear deliberately because it
"obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue".
Frank Furedi, a former professor of Sociology and writer for Spiked magazine, says that today's culture of fear did not begin with the collapse of the World Trade Center. Long before September 11, he argues, public panics were widespread – on everything from GM crops to mobile phones, from global warming to foot-and-mouth disease.
Like Durodié, Furedi argues that perceptions of risk, ideas about
safety and controversies over health, the environment and technology
have little to do with science or empirical evidence. Rather, they are shaped by cultural assumptions about human vulnerability.
Furedi says that "we need a grown-up discussion about our
post-September 11 world, based on a reasoned evaluation of all the
available evidence rather than on irrational fears for the future.
British academics Gabe Mythen and Sandra Walklate argue that
following terrorist attacks in New York, the Pentagon, Madrid, and
London, government agencies developed a discourse of "new terrorism" in a
cultural climate of fear and uncertainty. UK researchers argued that these processes reduced notions of public safety and created the simplistic image of a non-white "terroristic other" that has negative consequences for ethnic minority groups in the UK.
In his 2004 BBC documentary film series, The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, the journalist Adam Curtis
argues that politicians have used our fears to increase their power and
control over society. Though he does not use the term "culture of
fear," what Curtis describes in his film is a reflection of this
concept. He looks at the American neo-conservative movement and its depiction of the threat first from the Soviet Union and then from radical Islamists. Curtis insists there has been a largely illusory fear of terrorism in the west since the September 11 attacks and that politicians such as George W Bush and Tony Blair
had stumbled on a new force to restore their power and authority; using
the fear of an organised "web of evil" from which they could protect
their people. Curtis's film castigated the media, security forces and the Bush administration for expanding their power in this way. The film features Bill Durodié, then Director of the International Centre for Security Analysis, and Senior Research Fellow in the International Policy Institute, King's College London,
saying that to call this network an "invention" would be too strong a
term, but he asserts that it probably does not exist and is largely a "(projection) of our own worst fears, and that what we see is a fantasy that's been created."
In the workplace
Ashforth discussed potentially destructive sides of leadership and identified what he referred to as petty tyrants: leaders who exercise a tyrannical style of management, resulting in a climate of fear in the workplace. Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt. When employees get the sense that bullies are tolerated, a climate of fear may be the result.
Several studies have confirmed a relationship between bullying, on one
hand, and an autocratic leadership and an authoritarian way of settling
conflicts or dealing with disagreements, on the other. An authoritarian style of leadership may create a climate of fear, with little or no room for dialogue and with complaining being considered futile.
In a study of public-sector union members, approximately one in five workers reported having considered leaving
the workplace as a result of witnessing bullying taking place. Rayner
explained the figures by pointing to the presence of a climate of fear
in which employees considered reporting to be unsafe, where bullies had
been tolerated previously despite management knowing of the presence of
bullying. Individual differences in sensitivity to reward, punishment and motivation have been studied under the premises of reinforcement sensitivity theory and have also been applied to workplace performance. A culture of fear at the workplace runs contrary to the "key principles" established by W. Edwards Deming for managers to transform business effectiveness. One of his fourteen principles is to drive out fear in order to allow everyone to work effectively for the company.
Impact of the media
The
consumption of mass media has had a profound effect on instilling the
fear of terrorism in the United States, though acts of terror are a rare
phenomenon. Beginning in the 1960s, George Gerbner and his colleagues have accelerated the study of the relationship that exists between media consumption and the fear of crime.
According to Gerbner, television and other forms of mass media create a
worldview that is reflective of “recurrent media messages”, rather than
one that is based on reality.
Many Americans are exposed to some form of media on a daily basis,
with television and social media platforms being the most used methods
to receive both local and international news, and as such this is how
most receive news and details that center around violent crime and acts
of terror. With the rise in use of smartphones and social media, people
are bombarded with constant news updates, and able to read stories
related to terrorism, stories that come from all corners of the globe.
Media fuels fear of terrorism and other threats to national security,
all of which have negative psychological effects on the population, such
as depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
Politicians conduct interviews, televised or otherwise, and utilize
their social media platforms immediately after violent crimes and
terrorist acts, to further cement the fear of terrorism into the minds
of their constituents.
Publications
Sorted upwards by date, most recent last.
The Formation of the National Security State: the State and the Opposition in Military Brazil, Volume 2 (1982) by Maria Helena Moreira Alves
Risk Society, Towards a New Modernity (1989), by Ulrich Beck, ISBN978-0-8039-8346-5 [the term was coined in German by the same author in Risikogesellschaft. Die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit
(this subtitle means in English: "Organized irresponsibility"), a
speech given at St. Gallen College, Switzerland, 16pp., in 1989, then
published as full-length book with the title: Risikogesellschaft, Suhrkamp, 1989, 391pp., ISBN3-518-11365-8]
Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right and the Moral Panic over the City (2006), by Steve Macek, ISBN0-8166-4361-X
Cultures of Fear: A Critical Reader (2009), by Uli Linke, Danielle Smith, Anthropology, Culture and Society, ISBN978-0-7453-2965-9
Social Theory of Fear: terror, torture and death in a post Capitalist World (2010), by Geoffrey Skoll, New York, Palgrave MacMillan ISBN978-0-230-10349-8
Witnesses to Terror (2012), by Luke Howie, Baskinstoke, Palgrave MacMillan ISBN978-0-8232-2434-0
