Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-29T20:22:28.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The Concept of an Evolved Fear Module and Cognitive Theories of Anxiety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Arne Öhman  and
Stefan Wiens
Edited by
Antony S. R. Manstead ,
Nico Frijda  and
Agneta Fischer
Arne Öhman
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute
Stefan Wiens
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute
Antony S. R. Manstead
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Nico Frijda
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Agneta Fischer
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Get access

Summary

ABSTRACT

Consistent with theories that postulate appraisal as a key mechanism of emotion, the theoretical rationale behind the currently prominent cognitive therapy for disorders of anxiety and depression stresses the role of conscious processing in the generation of fear and anxiety. This emphasis, however, runs counter to recent developments in physiological, cognitive, and social psychology that document the importance of automatic processes in many psychological contexts. The point of departure for this chapter can be summarized in terms of the concept of an evolved fear module: a relatively independent behavioral, mental, and neural system that has evolved as a response to recurrent survival threats in mammalian evolution. The module is postulated to be selective, automatic, encapsulated, and realized in specific neural circuitry centered on the amygdala.

Research using masked stimuli show that the fear module is independent of conscious cognition. From this perspective, consciously accessible cognition has little role in the activation of fear and anxiety but may be important in maintaining the emotion over time.

When we think of emotions, fear is the one that most readily comes to mind. As an experience shared among humans, it is, perhaps more than we like, an integral part of human existence. In the science of emotion, furthermore, all theorists that accept the notion of basic or fundamental emotions agree that fear is one of them.

Type
Chapter
Information
Feelings and Emotions
The Amsterdam Symposium
 , pp. 58 - 80
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allman, J. M. (1999). Evolving brains. New York: Scientific American Library
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: Author
Amin, J. M., & Lovibond, P. F. (1997). Dissociation between covariation bias and expectancy bias for fear-relevant stimuli. Cognition and Emotion, 11, 273–289CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrindell, W. A.; Pickersgill, M. J.; Merckelbach, H.; Ardon, M. A.; & Cornet, F. C. (1991). Phobic dimensions: III. Factor analytic approaches to the study of common phobic fears: An updated review of findings obtained with adult subjects. Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy, 13, 73–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barlow, D. H. (1988). Anxiety and its disorders: The nature and treatment of anxiety and panic. New York: Guilford
Beck, A. T.; Emery, G.; & Greenberg, R. L. (1985). Anxiety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective. New York: Basic Books
Blanchard, D. C., & Blanchard, R. J. (1988). Ethoexperimental approaches to the biology of emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 43–68CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, D. M. (1986). A cognitive approach to panic. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 24, 461–470CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, D. M. (1999). Anxiety disorders: Why they persist and how to treat them. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 37, S5–S27CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, E. W.; Hodes, R. L.; & Lang, P. J. (1986). Preparedness and phobia: Effects of stimulus content on human visceral conditioning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 195–207CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cook, M., & Mineka, S. (1989). Observational conditioning of fear to fear-relevant versus fear-irrelevant stimuli in rhesus monkeys. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 448–459CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cook, M., & Mineka, S. (1990). Selective associations in the observational conditioning of fear in rhesus monkeys. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 16, 372–389Google ScholarPubMed
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
Davey, G. C. L. (1995). Preparedness and phobias: Specific evolved associations or a generalized expectancy bias?Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18, 289–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, M., & Lee, Y. (1998). Fear and anxiety: Possible roles of the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 277–305Google Scholar
Davis, M., & Whalen, P. J. (2001). The amygdala: Vigilance and emotion. Molecular Psychiatry, 6, 13–34CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dimberg, U. (1982). Facial reactions to facial expresssions. Psychophysiology, 19, 643–647CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimberg, U.; Thunberg, M.; & Elmehed, K. (2000). Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions. Psychological Science, 11, 86–89CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Emery, N. J., & Amaral, D. G. (2000). The role of the amygdala in primate social cognition. In R. Lane and L. Nadel (Eds.), The cognitive neuroscience of emotion (pp. 156–191). New York: Oxford University Press
Epstein, S. (1972). The nature of anxiety with emphasis upon its relationship to expectancy. In C. D. Spielberger (Ed.), Anxiety: Current trends in theory and research (Vol. 2, pp. 292–338). New York: Academic PressCrossRef
Esteves, F.; Dimberg, U.; & Öhman, A. (1994). Automatically elicited fear: Conditioned skin conductance responses to masked facial expressions. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 393–413CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esteves, F., & Öhman, A. (1993). Masking the face: Recognition of emotional facial expressions as a function of the parameters of backward masking. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 34, 1–18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esteves, F.; Parra, C.; Dimberg, U.; & Öhman, A. (1994). Nonconscious associative learning: Pavlovian conditioning of skin conductance responses to masked fear-relevant facial stimuli. Psychophysiology, 31, 375–385CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fanselow, M. S. (1994). Neural organization of the defensive behavior system responsible for fear. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 1, 429–438CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fendt, M., & Fanselow, M. S. (1999). The neuroanatomical and neurochemical basis of conditioned fear. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 23, 743–760CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fodor, J. (1983). The modularity of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Fredrikson, M. (1981). Orienting and defensive reactions to phobic and conditioned fear stimuli in phobics and normals. Psychophysiology, 18, 456–465CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gazzaniga, M. S. (1998). The mind's past. Berkeley: University of California Press
Globisch, J.; Hamm, A. O.; Esteves, F.; & Öhman, A. (1999). Fear appears fast: Temporal course of startle reflex potentiation in animal fearful subjects. Psychophysiology, 36, 66–75CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamm, A. O.; Cuthbert, B. N.; Globisch, J.; & Vaitl, D. (1997). Fear and the startle reflex: Blink modulation and autonomic response patterns in animal and mutilation fearful subjects. Psychophysiology, 34, 97–107CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hansen, C., & Hansen, R. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd: An anger superiority effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 917–924CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hibbert, G. A. (1984). Ideational components of anxiety: Their origin and content. British Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 618–624CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hugdahl, K., & Kärker, A. C. (1981). Biological vs experiential factors in phobic conditioning. Behavioural Research and Therapy, 19, 109–115CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hugdahl, K., & Öhman, A. (1977). Effects of instruction on acquisition and extinction of electrodermal responses to fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 3, 608–618Google ScholarPubMed
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion?Mind, 9, 188–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katkin, E. S. (1985). Blood, sweat, and tears: Individual differences in autonomic self-perception. Psychophysiology, 22, 125–137CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Katkin, E. S.; Wiens, S.; & Öhman, A. (2001). Nonconscious fear conditioning, visceral perception, and the development of gut feelings. Psychological Science, 12, 366–370CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kennedy, S. J.; Rapee, R. M.; & Mazursky, E. J. (1997). Covariation bias for phylogenetic versus ontogenetic fear-relevant stimuli. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 415–422CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lang, P. J.; Bradley, M. M.; & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997). Motivated attention: Affect, activation, and action. In P. J. Lang, R. F. Simons, and M. T. Balaban (Eds.), Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational processes (pp. 97–136). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
Lang, P. J.; Davis, M.; & Öhman, A. (2000). Fear and anxiety: Animal models and human cognitive psychophysiology. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61, 137–159CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lazarus, R. S. (1984). Thoughts on the relation between emotion and cognition. American Psychologist, 37, 1019–1024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeDoux, J. E. (1989). Cognitive-emotional interactions in the brain. Cognition and Emotion, 3, 267–289CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeDoux, J. E. (1990). Fear pathways in the brain: Implications for a theory of the emotional brain. In P. F. Brain, S. Parmigiani, R. J. Blanchard, and D. Mainardi (Eds.), Fear and defence (pp. 163–178). London: Harwood
LeDoux, J. E. (1992). Brain mechanisms of emotion and emotional learning. Current Opinions in Neurobiology, 2, 191–197CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain. New York: Simon & Schuster
Leventhal, H., & Scherer, K. R. (1987). The relationship of emotion to cognition: A functional approach to a semantic controversy. Cognition and Emotion, 1, 3–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovibond, P. F., & Shanks, D. R. (2002). The role of awareness in Pavlovian conditioning: Empirical evidence and theoretical implications. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 28, 3–26Google ScholarPubMed
Lundqvist, D.; Esteves, F.; & Öhman, A. (1999). The face of wrath: Critical features for conveying facial threat. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 691–711CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandler, G. (1975). Mind and emotion. New York: John Wiley
Marcel, A. J. (1983). Conscious and unconscious perception: An approach to the relations between phenomenological experience and perceptual processes. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 238–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, I. M. (1987). Fears, phobias, and rituals. Panic, anxiety, and their disorders. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Mayr, E. (1974). Behavior programs and evolutionary strategies. American Scientist, 62, 650–659Google ScholarPubMed
McNally, R. J. (2001). On the scientific status of cognitive appraisal models of anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 39, 513–521CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Menzies, R. G., & Clarke, J. C. (1995a). Danger expectancies and insight in acrophobia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33, 215–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mineka, S. (1992). Evolutionary memories, emotional processing, and the emotional disorders. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 28, 161–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. S.; DeGelder, B.; Weiskrantz, L.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001). Differential extrageniculostriate and amygdala responses to presentation of emotional faces in a cortically blind field. Brain, 124, 1241–1252CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J.; Öhman, A.; & Dolan, R. J. (1998). Modulation of human amygdala activity by emotional learning and conscious awareness. Nature, 393, 467–470CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. S.; Öhman, A.; & Dolan, R. J. (1999). A subcortical pathway to the right amygdala mediating “unseen” fear. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 96, 1680–1685CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A. (1979a). Fear relevance, autonomic conditioning, and phobias: A Laboratory model. In P.-O. Sjödén, S. Bates, & W. S. Dickens III (Eds.), Trends in behavior therapy (pp. 107–134). New York: Academic Press
Öhman, A. (1993). Stimulus prepotency and fear learning: Data and theory. In N. Birbaumer and A. Öhman (Eds.), The structure of emotion: Psychophysiological, cognitive, and clinical aspects (pp. 218–239). Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber
Öhman, A. (1996). Preferential preattentive processing of threat in anxiety: Preparedness and attentional biases. In R. M. Rapee (Ed.), Current controversies in the anxiety disorders (pp. 253–290). New York: Guilford
Öhman, A. (2000a). Anxiety. In G. Fink (Ed.), Encyclopedia of stress (Vol. 1, pp. 226–231). San Diego: Academic Press
Öhman, A. (2000b). Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In M. Lewis and J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2d ed.; pp. 573–593). New York: Guilford
Öhman, A.; Dimberg, U.; & Öst, L.-G. (1985). Animal and social phobias: Biological constraints on learned fear responses. In S. Reiss and R. R. Bootzin (Eds.), Theoretical issues in behavior therapy (pp. 123–178). New York: Academic Press
Öhman, A.; Flykt, A.; & Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 466–478CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A.; Fredrikson, M.; & Hugdahl, K. (1978). Orienting and defensive responding in the electrodermal system: Palmar-dorsal differences and recovery rate during conditioning to potentially phobic stimuli. Psychophysty, 15, 93–101CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A.; Lundqvist, D.; & Esteves, F. (2001). The face in the crowd revisited: An anger superiority effect with schematic stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 381–396CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108, 483–522CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A., & Soares, J. J. F. (1993). On the automatic nature of phobic fear: Conditioned electrodermal responses to masked fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 1221–1232CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A., & Soares, J. J. F. (1994). “Unconscious anxiety”: Phobic responses to masked stimuli. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 231–240CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öhman, A., & Soares, J. J. F. (1998). Emotional conditioning to masked stimuli: Expectancies for aversive outcomes following nonrecognized fear-relevant stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 69–82CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Öst, L. G., & Csatlos, P. (2000). Probability ratings in claustrophobic patients and normal controls. Behavior Research and Therapy, 38, 1107–1116CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parra, C.; Esteves, F.; Flykt, A.; & Öhman, A. (1997). Pavlovian conditioning to social stimuli: Backward masking and the dissociation of implicit and explicit cognitive processes. European Psychologist, 2, 106–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purcell, D. G.; Stewart, A. L.; & Skov, R. B. (1996). It takes a confounded face to pop out of a crowd. Perception, 25, 1091–1108CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rapee, R. M. (Ed.). (1996). Current controversies in the anxiety disorders. New York: Plenum
Rolls, E. T., & Tovée, M. J. (1994). Processing speed in the cerebral cortex and the neurophysiology of visual masking. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, Series B, 257, 9–15CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rolls, E. T.; Tovée, M. J.; & Panzeri, S. (1999). The neurophysiology of backward masking: Information analysis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11, 300–311CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roseman, I. J., & Smith, C. A. (2001). Appraisal theory: Overview, assumptions, varieties, controversies. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr, and T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotion (pp. 3–19). New York: Oxford University Press
Rosen, J. B., & Schulkin, J. (1998). From normal fear to pathological anxiety. Psychological Review, 105, 325–350CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Russell, P. A. (1979). Fear-evoking stimuli. In W. Sluckin (Ed.), Fear in animals and man (pp. 85–124). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Schell, A. M.; Dawson, M. E.; & Marinkovic, K. (1991). Effects of the use of potentially phobic CSs on retention, reinstatement, and extinction of the conditioned skin conductance response. Psychophysiology, 28, 140–153CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scherer, K. R. (1999). Appraisal theory. In T. Dalgleish and M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 637–663). London: WileyCrossRef
Seligman, M. E. P. (1971). Phobias and preparedness. Behavior Therapy, 2, 307–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soares, J. J. F., & Öhman, A. (1993). Preattentive processing, preparedness, and phobias: Effects of instruction on conditioned electrodermal responses to masked and non-masked fear-relevant stimuli. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 87–95CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thorpe, S. J., & Salkovskis, P. M. (1995). Phobic beliefs: Do cognitive factors play a role in specific phobias?Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33, 805–816CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomarken, A. J.; Cook, M.; & Mineka, S. (1989). Fear-relevant selective associations and covariation bias. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 381–394CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomarken, A. J.; Sutton, S. K.; & Mineka, S. (1995). Fear-relevant illusory correlations: What types of associations promote judgmental bias?Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 312–326CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vuilleumier, P.; Armony, J. L.; Driver, J.; & Dolan, R. J. (2001). Effects of attention and emotion on face processing in the human brain: An event-related fMRI study. Neuron, 30, 829–841CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whalen, P. J.; Rauch, S. L.; Etcoff, N. L.; McInerney, S. C.; Lee, M. B.; & Jenike, M. A. (1998). Masked presentations of emotional facial expression modulate amygdala activity without explicit knowledge. Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 411–418CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wiens, S., & Öhman, A. (2002). Unconsciousness is more than a chance event. Comment on Lovibond and Shanks (2002). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 28, 27–31Google Scholar
Zajonc, R. B. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. American Psychologist, 35, 151–175CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zajonc, R. B. (1984). On the primacy of affect. American Psychologist, 39, 117–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×