ABSTRACT
The ancient Greeks were not so much interested in fear or anxiety as in the emotional states that accompanied the seriously deviant profiles of mania, depression, and delusions. Fear assumed greater prominence during the medieval centuries when worry over God's wrath became a preoccupying concern. S. Freud may have ignored unfamiliarity as a source of fear because of his concern with chronic anxiety, not the temporary fear of a new place that vanishes after several minutes. The family of human fears can be likened to the families in animal phylogeny. The modern neuroscientist interested in emotion brings a second bias to research that was also prominent in eighteenth-century essays. Certain calls produce a fear reaction in birds and primates, but sounds seem to be less potent innate releasers of fear in humans. The three sources of fear also differ in the behaviors they most often generate. Three common fear reactions in children are crying, flight/avoidance, and immobility or freezing.
