ABSTRACT
From an evolutional perspective, since the beginning of our existence humans have faced fears of being devoured by a beast in the middle of the night, being bitten by spiders or snakes, or falling off a cliff . According to the imprinting theory of Konrad Lorenz, some of the behaviors to defend against this threat were congenitally imprinted at birth. A clear example of this kind of congenital fright is the fear of loud noises. Every child has it and it may have served as an adaptive survival skill. In addition, research shows that little children show a tendency to experience more fear when faced with the image of a threatening animal than with a bloody knife. Th is concept was also referred to by Carl Jung as our collective unconscious. Many of us may have never seen a snake or spider but are still susceptible of developing a phobia to these creatures. In addition, the feared objects vary historically depending
on the social context. For example, as explained in earlier chapters, a fear of an invasion was common during the Cold War, which explains the success of fi lms about alien invaders from outer space. Nowadays, with the memory of the recent fi nancial crisis, a fear of system collapse would explain the success of zombie and apocalyptic fi lms.
