ABSTRACT
Panic – as a descriptor applied to flight or affiliative behavior – is an evaluative term, and the intensity of stimulation-seeking at which "panic" occurs is arbitrary just as the thermometer reading at which "coldness" or "heat" occurs is arbitrary. Panic among combat troops is very rare, despite the presence of extreme danger. Curiously, however, panic among troops is more common when there is no apparent increase in danger. "Panic" has been taken to include two general classes of behavior: wild, agitated behavior, such as occurs in flight or attack, and immobility or "freezing" responses. A major problem with the approach–avoidance dichotomy is that it results from studying behavior in a contextual vacuum and neglects the fundamental and overriding importance of social attachments in animal and human behavior. Research on the natural substrate of motivational behavior has shown that there is much less anatomical specificity with respect to behavior within the hypothalamus than is commonly supposed.
