After Earth: Fear is a Choice
Fear is a common emotion. Fear of violence is also a common
emotion in most people. Fear can be beneficial when it keeps you safe in
certain situations. This is Situational Fear. But when fear is ongoing or not
based on an actual and current threat is becomes Dispositional Fear.
Dispositional Fear creates stress and anxiety. Dispositional Fear makes you
less safe because you have trouble identifying actual threats from imaginary
ones. It lowers your ability to reason and make effective decisions. To summarize, some Situational Fear is good
for you, most Dispositional Fear is bad for you.
“To him who
is in fear everything rustles.” - Sophocles
Where does Fear come from? Fear is the result of a person’s
threat assessment of some unwanted event or occurrence. This threat assessment can
be both conscious and/or unconscious and most likely is a combination of both.
The threat assessment is the result of the person’s perception of five
factors:
CHANCE is the odds or likelihood that the unwanted event
could occur. Theoretically, chance is determined by mathematical odds determined
from statistics. But in the real word, statistic don’t tell the whole story.
They have been cherry picked and manipulated. What Chance really comes down to
is your gut feeling as to the likelihood that something may or may not happen.
CONTROL is your ability to affect whether or not something
happens. If you have influence on the event occurring you have some control. If
you have no influence, then you have no control.
CAPABILITY is your ability to handle the event if it does
occur. The greater your ability to deal with the event, the greater your
evaluation of your Capability.
CONSEQUENCE is the result of what you think is going to
happen. For example, you believe the Consequences of being robbed is the loss
of your wallet. Or you believe that not only will you lose your wallet, you
will also be beaten, raped, and possibly killed.
COPING is how you handle the unwanted event. Are you able to
deal with the aftermath easily, or do you suffer a high degree of post event
stress, self-blame, and debilitation.
All of these 5C’s are perception and belief based. You
really don’t have concrete data to make a true evaluation based on mathematical
calculations. Your evaluations many be based on experience and evaluation of
the facts. They could be based on perceptions and beliefs acquired through the
news media, Hollywood images, cultural stereotypes, myths and misinformation
promoted by self-serving industries and ideological organizations.
“There is
no passion so contagious as that of fear.” - Michel de Montaigne
Your threat assessment depends upon the combination of these
perceptions. For example, a high threat assessment is the result of
Chance=high, Control=low, Capability=low, Consequence=high, Coping=low. Here is
an example. Many parents fear their child will be abducted while walking home
from school. They perceive the Chance is higher than it statistically is. They
have no Control to prevent it. They have no Capability to stop it. The
Consequence is never seeing their child again. They don’t think they could Cope
with the loss. All of these beliefs combine to create a high threat assessment
and associated fear.
A low threat assessment is the opposite - Chance=low,
Control=high, Capability=high, Consequence=low, Coping=high. All things being
equal, people with an Internal Locus of Control (they make things happen) are
more likely to have lower threat assessments than those with an External Locus
of Control (things happen to them).
“I have
learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear;
knowing what must be done does away with fear.” - Rosa Parks
Fear also arises from CREATIVITY. It takes a creative mind to envision the many ways in which harm could occur. Someone with an active imagination has the ability to "see" a whole host of potentially threatening scenarios that simply wouldn't occur to a less creative person. More perceived threats leads to more fear.
Karen Thompson Walker: What Fear Can Teach Us - TED Talk
People with Dispositional Fear combine creativity with a generally higher baseline threat assessment for unwanted events. They perceive more risk in the world around them than others. Dispositional Fear can result from multiple incidents of Situational Fear or occurrences of unwanted events.
Fear also arises from CREATIVITY. It takes a creative mind to envision the many ways in which harm could occur. Someone with an active imagination has the ability to "see" a whole host of potentially threatening scenarios that simply wouldn't occur to a less creative person. More perceived threats leads to more fear.
Karen Thompson Walker: What Fear Can Teach Us - TED Talk
People with Dispositional Fear combine creativity with a generally higher baseline threat assessment for unwanted events. They perceive more risk in the world around them than others. Dispositional Fear can result from multiple incidents of Situational Fear or occurrences of unwanted events.
“The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Situational Fear is temporary and depends on the
circumstances. Fear of falling disappears when the person is on the ground.
Fear of a particular person should dissipate when that person is not around.
Otherwise, it morphs into Dispositional Fear. Fear from being in a dangerous
situation should disappear when the danger goes away.
The first step to dealing with your fear is understanding
what underlying factors and beliefs have influenced your threat assessment. An
accurate threat assessment is a critical component for insuring safety. Should
you really be afraid and thus your fear is keeping you safe? Or is your fear
unfounded and based on the sum of your worst case perceptions of the 5Cs? Does
your fear keep you anxious and paralyze you into inaction. Is your fear based
on critical thinking and judgment? Or does it arise from unconscious and
ingrained beliefs absorbed from self-serving agendas, negative stereotypes and
fearful images created by popular culture?
“We fear
things in proportion to our ignorance of them.’ - Christian Nestell Bovee