Why Humans Experience Fear

Why Humans Experience Fear? Scientists have long wondered why we experience fear, and there is a good reason for it. The brain sends signals to the nervous system to react to the threat. These signals alter our perception and link sensory processing to action selection. In the process of responding to a threat, we decide whether the situation is important or not. There are three psychological processes that determine whether we are afraid of a situation: importance, valence, and action.

Ethologists have argued that the causes of human fear lie in the brain. They argue that the nervous system creates and maintains a neuronal representation of fear, which gives the person experiencing it the same information as the person who is not experiencing the fear. This would link psychological theories about emotion to its neurobiological substrate and revive William James’ original idea. However, we would not be able to test the theory in animals, since we would have to understand the environment of the species and its evolutionary mechanisms.

Rather, we can assume that humans experience fear by virtue of their interoceptive self-representations. We make joint representations with each of these variables and then we use them to generate a response that reflects our current state of fear. It’s a complicated process, but it makes sense if you think about it. So, why do we feel fear? The answer lies in the way our brains are wired.