Is fear a natural instinct or does it have to be taught?

It could be both. I think, by instinct, we are fearful of life-threatening things. Its an evolutionary instinct, part of our sympathetic nervous system, causing us to flee when we are in danger.


However, fear can be taught through classical conditioning. Read about Watson's Little Albert study. He managed to get a baby (Albert) terrified of white rats and anything else white and fuzzy. He presented Albert with the rat and then made a loud noise. Albert screamed. He did this again and again. After awhile, he took away the noise and just presented the rat and Albert was terrified. They then tried other things, like rabbits, a seal fur coat, even a Santa Claus wig, and Albert was either scared or agitated.





Its one of the classic studies in behavioral conditioning.Is fear a natural instinct or does it have to be taught?
Fear is a natural instinct. All creatures are born with it.


It's a survival mechanism. Without it, you wouldn't know what to stay away from to ensure your survival.Is fear a natural instinct or does it have to be taught?
great question,i cant remember fearing anything at an Early age.my memory goes back as far as my seventh month,my grandmother said that she would turn her back and i would disappear into the woods,i remember playing there,i was fine until i was reminded that i might run into a bear or panther and what they could do,i did become afraid.so it is taught.
Fear is a natural instinct. For example, today I went fishing on Long Island, New York. As I drove along the path along the inlet leading to the Atlantic Ocean, I saw a cormarand bird and a seagull. The seagull was bigger, but the cormarand kept his wings spread out and looked bigger than the seagull. Neither budged, however, but it appeared that the cormarand was trying to intimidate the seagull since both were on the hunt for food.
to fear something is a natural instinc... WHAT you fear is taught.. at least most of it is. For example, my mom never taught me that worms and insects are disgunsting and something ot be feared... so I'm not scared of them, but you ask any other girl and her mother told her they were icky and disgusting so she is afraid of them...
Some fears are inborn. Fear of falling and fear of loud noises are examples. Other fears are learned. We learn to be afraid of growling dogs and snakes, for example.
Although fear is a natural instinct. Some sort of triggering event is required for a fear to be realized. acrophobia, fear of snake etc are all good examples of this.


look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fear if you are still interested.
It's natural, but it can be taught like anything else. it can also be taught NOT to be enacted
Fear itself is instinct, but you can be taught to be afraid of certain things (ie don't talk to strangers)
I believe to a certain extent that fear is an instinct but I also believe that many of people's fear are learned from having negative experiences involving that fear. Like when they did that experiment on a baby forever ago, before it was found unethical. A rabbit or some harmless creature was placed in front of the baby and he was fine until they crashed a set of cymbals which made the baby cry. They kept repeating this until they didn't have to crash the cymbals for the baby to cry. Seeing the animal caused the baby to be afraid of the sound it associated with it.
I think its a natural instinct without it we could put ourselves in danger. Being brave is not having fears but its the ability to face the fear.