Definition, Symptoms, Examples, & Tips

Put simply, fear is the experience we have when we feel threatened (Adolphs, 2013). Whether the threat is an upcoming performance review at work, the steep slope of a mountain you’ve chosen to ski down, or the sound of footsteps behind you at night, fear is a full-body, stressful experience of anticipating something bad might happen. We usually think of fear as an emotion (Thomson, 1979), but as we will see, scientists also define fear according to the thoughts, behaviors, and changes in our bodies that happen when we feel fear (Buck, 1984; Ekman, 1977).

The Opposite of Fear
Many wise people have contemplated what the opposite of fear is, and they have generally chosen something such as faith, hope, courage, confidence, or trust (Gray, 2021; Konstan, 2005; Piscitelli & Perrella, 2017). This range of responses makes sense if we think about it for a moment: if fear is the belief that you are in danger, a fully opposite experience would not just involve the absence of fear, but also believing that something good will happen.

Fear in the Body
When something frightens you, your conscious experience of it may be a combination of physical symptoms (more on these in a moment) and fearful thoughts. Psychologists and other scientists, however, think of a fear as a response your body makes to something threatening, with the goal of defending you against it (Johnson, 2016). Parts of your brain that focus on detecting threat go on high alert, telling the rest of your body to flood with hormones and prepare you to react effectively (LeDoux, 2003). This high-alert response involves many changes in your body.

Fear in the Mind
Psychologists also measure fear by looking at how frequent, intense, and long-lasting the thoughts are about the threatening event (Rachman et al., 1987). To take an example, most people who are about to have surgery done will have some fearful thoughts regarding negative outcomes. However, if those thoughts come up so frequently or are so difficult to ignore that they make it hard for somebody to go about their daily life, then they may need professional help coping with that fear.

Fear in Our Behavior
When we face something threatening, we try to respond adaptively. All of the ways we behave in the face of fear function to help us stay safe (Adolphs, 2013). As you may have heard before, most animals, including humans, respond to frightening circumstances with some version of fight or flight response. This might include “fight” (e.g., getting ready to meet the threat head-on), “flight” (e.g., getting ready to run away and avoid the danger), or “freeze” (e.g., shutting down so that the threat may pass you by) (Bracha et al., 2004). 
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As a therapist who works with couples, I have seen all three types of responses when my clients are afraid. When one partner voices a criticism or an unmet need, I have seen the other partner object defensively (i.e, “fight”), change the topic (i.e., “flight”), or simply sit in silence and not respond (i.e., “freeze”).   

The following physical symptoms are common in fear responses. You have likely experienced all of these at one point or another – I know I have:

Common Symptoms of Fear

• Rapid heartbeat
• Sweating
• Trembling
• Shortness of breath
• Wobbly legs
• Dizzy or lightheaded
• Feeling of choking
• Indigestion
• Chest pain
• Getting chills
• Flushed face
• Dry mouth

​In addition, to these physical symptoms, people often report feeling overwhelmed, out of control, nervous, or numb, when they are afraid (Beck & Steer, 1993).

We often use the words “fear” and “anxiety” as if they are pretty much the same thing. However, researchers and psychologists have distinct definitions for each word. Fear is an immediate and automatic response to something threatening in your environment. If you respond effectively to the fearful situation, you may not fear it as much next time. However, if you don’t resolve or get out of the fearful situation, you learn to worry about that situation happening again. That’s how anxiety develops. In other words, feeling anxiety results from being in fearful situations that you don’t think you can handle (Beck & Emery, 2005; Ohman, 2008).

While our minds may be drawn to vivid examples of fear, such as the phobias that keep people from flying, receiving an injection, or touching spiders, small moments of fear happen for us most every day. Driving home out of the mountains on a recent snowy day, I had several such experiences. Skidding on an icy patch of road, I feared hitting the guardrail or going through it. Seeing a police car behind me, I felt a flash of fear wondering if I’d left my wallet at home. Now driving very slowly, I saw the cars lining up behind me and began to fear that they would be angry at my cautious driving. ​

Knowing this, we can practice talking back to our fears. Engaging the more “logical” side of our brains can help us reduce our fear response. For example, I have been learning to rock climb for the last year. Every time I climb, as I approach the limits of my physical strength, I become afraid of falling and dying. Before the emotional and physical responses of fear take over, I have to re-engage my thinking brain. I remind myself that nobody has ever died at this climbing gym, that the rope holding me up can support 2000 pounds, that my partner is watching me and knows how to keep me safe. 

My fear of heights is innate and important – without all these protections in place, letting go of the wall would mean dying. But I am actually safe, and once I remind myself of that, I can keep climbing. 

We can also overcome fear by consciously regulating our bodies. Taking deep breaths, consciously relaxing our muscles, and even imagining ourselves in a less stressful situation can reduce fear.

Want to learn more about fear? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

To keep learning about fear, here are some books to explore:​​

• Adolphs, R. (2013). The biology of fear. Current Biology, 23(2), R79-R93.
• Beck, A. T., & Emery, G. (2005). Anxiety disorders and phobias: a cognitive perspective. New York: Basic Books.
• Beck, A. T., & Steer, R. A. (1993). Beck anxiety inventory manual. San Antonio: Psychological Corporation.
• Birbaumer, N., Veit, R., Lotze, M., Erb, M., Hermann, C., Grodd, W., & Flor, H., (2005). Deficient fear conditioning in psychopathy: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 799–805. 
• Bracha, H. S., Ralston, T. C., Matsukawa, J. M., Williams, A. E., & Bracha, A. S. (2004). Does “fight or flight” need updating? Psychosomatics, 45(5), 448-449.
• Buck, R. (1984). The communication of emotion. New York: Guilford Press.
• Ekman, P. (1977). Biological and cultural contributions to body and facial movement. In J. Blacking (Ed.), A.S.A. monograph 15, the anthropology of the body (pp. 39–84). London: Academic Press. 
• Ekman, P. (1992). Are there basic emotions? Psychology Review, 99, 550–553.
• Gray, C. H. (2021). Virus is a language: COVID-19 and the new abnormal. Cultural Politics, 17(1), 92-101.
• Johnson, L. R. (2016). Editorial: how fear and stress shape the mind. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10, 00024.
• Konstan, D. (2005). The emotions of the ancient Greeks: a cross-cultural perspective. Psychologia, 48, 225-240.
• LeDoux, J. (2003). The emotional brain, fear, and the amygdala. Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, 23, 727–738.​
• Maren, S., Luan Phan, K., & Liberzon, I. (2013). The contextual brain: implications for fear conditioning, extinction and psychopathology. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14, 417-428.
• McLean., C. P., Levy, H. C., Miller, M. L., & Tolin, D. F. (2022). Exposure therapy for PTSD: a meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 91, 102115.
• Öhman, A. (2008). Fear and anxiety: Overlap and dissociation. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. Feldman Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 709–729). New York, NY: Guilford Press. 
• Piscitelli, A., & Perrella, A. M. L. (2017). Fear of crime and participation in associational life. The Social Science Journal, 54(2), 179-190.
• Rachman, S., Levitt, K., & Lopatka, C. (1987). Panic: the links between cognitions and bodily symptoms – I. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 25(5), 411-423.
• Thomson, R. (1979). The concept of fear. In W. Sluckin (Ed.), Fear in animals and man (pp. 1–23). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
• Thorberg, F. A., & Lyvers, M. (2006). Attachment, fear of intimacy and differentiation of self among clients in substance disorder treatment facilities. Addictive Behaviors, 31(4), 732-737.