The Monistic Nature of Fear Fear is an emotion experienced in most all living creatures; this emotion is experienced precisely because it is a survival mechanism developed to protect an individual during dangerous or uncomfortable situations, combining physical and psychological aspects together in the uniformity of monism. Comparing studies between one concerning a lessened neurological processing of pain in fearful subjects that are administered light shocks and a separate study concerning the recognition of fearful bodily expressions, the true invariability of psychology and physiology will be addressed. Fear can be thought of as a series of reactions that occur, beginning with a stressful stimulus that activates the sympathetic nervous
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In the initially introduced brain response study, fourteen healthy males between the ages of nineteen and forty-four that were right-handed and medically screened were chosen “in order to reduce heterogeneity due to sex differences” (Kumari, Ffytche, Wilson, Goswami, Das, & Sharma, 2007). The subjects were also tested through the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire to evaluate neuroticism, extraversion, and psychoticism. In the separate bodily expression recognition study, undergraduate students with adequate vision were tested. More female participants were involved in the experiment, with sixteen females and seven males total and an average of 19.8 years old (Stienen & de Gelder, 2011). Having a variety of ages in the brain response study creates a stronger argument that these fear responses remain at a constant throughout a large portion of life, but does not account for the differences in fear response in females. In the bodily expression study, a narrow age range is tested, but both genders are …show more content…
In Kumari’s brain response study, the experiment lasted approximately five minutes; beforehand, each subject was given a test shock, causing only mild discomfort, by a bar electrode connected to a velcro strap near the wrist. While lying in the scanner, the subject endured a functional MRI as well as “repeated presentations of two 30-s alternating conditions” (Kumari et al., 2007). These conditions included viewing the word “Safe” on a screen during a 30 second non-shock period and then the word “Shock” during a 30 second period in which they were told they would receive at least one shock of similar or slightly greater intensity of their initial test shock. In reality, however, none of the participants were given shocks while in the scanner, yet their neurological fear responses were quite noticeable. In Steinin’s bodily expression experiment, each participant was shown sixteen different images of four different actors assuming different physiological stances. The actors’ faces were covered with a grey patch as to “prevent that the facial expression would influence the identification of the emotional body expression” (Steinin et al., 2011). The participants were instructed to press a button with their left index finger if they considered the bodily expression to be fearful and to withhold pressing if they considered it
In the initially introduced brain response study, fourteen healthy males between the ages of nineteen and forty-four that were right-handed and medically screened were chosen “in order to reduce heterogeneity due to sex differences” (Kumari, Ffytche, Wilson, Goswami, Das, & Sharma, 2007). The subjects were also tested through the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire to evaluate neuroticism, extraversion, and psychoticism. In the separate bodily expression recognition study, undergraduate students with adequate vision were tested. More female participants were involved in the experiment, with sixteen females and seven males total and an average of 19.8 years old (Stienen & de Gelder, 2011). Having a variety of ages in the brain response study creates a stronger argument that these fear responses remain at a constant throughout a large portion of life, but does not account for the differences in fear response in females. In the bodily expression study, a narrow age range is tested, but both genders are …show more content…
In Kumari’s brain response study, the experiment lasted approximately five minutes; beforehand, each subject was given a test shock, causing only mild discomfort, by a bar electrode connected to a velcro strap near the wrist. While lying in the scanner, the subject endured a functional MRI as well as “repeated presentations of two 30-s alternating conditions” (Kumari et al., 2007). These conditions included viewing the word “Safe” on a screen during a 30 second non-shock period and then the word “Shock” during a 30 second period in which they were told they would receive at least one shock of similar or slightly greater intensity of their initial test shock. In reality, however, none of the participants were given shocks while in the scanner, yet their neurological fear responses were quite noticeable. In Steinin’s bodily expression experiment, each participant was shown sixteen different images of four different actors assuming different physiological stances. The actors’ faces were covered with a grey patch as to “prevent that the facial expression would influence the identification of the emotional body expression” (Steinin et al., 2011). The participants were instructed to press a button with their left index finger if they considered the bodily expression to be fearful and to withhold pressing if they considered it