Name: The Fear Factor
Rating: 4.1 (61 reviews)
Author: Abigail Marsh

What’s in it for me? Turn your fear into something good.

Most people regard fear as something that needs to be overcome. It’s a feeling that is often stigmatized; no one likes to admit that they’re afraid.

But what if fear is an emotion that can actually help us? Or better yet, what if fear can help us help others?

These blinks will make you think twice about the true nature of fear, and show you that being afraid and acting heroically aren’t mutually exclusive. The author draws on a range of scientific studies, some of which she designed herself, to clearly explain how fear is related to certain behaviors, as well as how it develops into acts of kindness and good deeds.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how psychopaths think;
what causes the parental instinct; and
which country is the most generous in the world.

Empathy and the ability to recognize fear are closely linked.

Empathy refers to the ability to understand another person’s emotional state, and can sometimes result in the direct experience of another person’s feelings. Usually, we tend to see people as either naturally empathetic and nice, or innately mean and cruel. However, empathy isn’t an inherent trait, but rather a result of where your focus lies.

As such, empathy can, at least to a certain extent, be manipulated.

For example, inspired by the 1978 study by psychologist Daniel Batson, which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the author conducted an experiment where the subjects were asked to listen to a radio interview.

The interview was of a woman named Katie, who’d lost both her parents and was responsible for taking care of her younger siblings. She worked several jobs while simultaneously studying to earn her college degree.

Before listening to the interview, some participants were asked to focus on the technical details of her story, while the rest were asked to focus on and identify the emotions Katie was expressing. Afterward, the author asked if anyone would like to donate money to Katie. The results showed that those who had been asked to focus on Katie’s feelings donated more than those who focused on technical details.

What the author also discovered during the study was that empathy was strongly related to the ability to recognize when others are experiencing fear.

Following the interview exercise, the author asked the participants to study photographs of faces and identify whether they were expressing happiness, sadness, anger or fear. Interestingly, the participants who didn’t do well at recognizing happy expressions, but who were able to identify fearful expressions, had also donated the most money to Katie.

What we can infer from this is that people who are good at recognizing fear in others also tend to be more altruistic. Let’s explore this concept further in the next blink.

Psychopaths typically lack a functioning amygdala, which helps stimulate the fear response.

In the previous blink, we established that empathy and the ability to identify fear are strongly linked. This concept has fascinated neuroscientists because fear, and thus empathy, could now be traced back to a particular area of the brain.

Specifically, the amygdala plays an important role in stimulating the fear response. Shaped like an almond, the amygdala is a small part of the brain that detects threats in your surroundings and brings about a fear response. For example, if you come into contact with a snake, or find yourself on the edge of a cliff, your amygdala will tell your body to move away to safety.

Parental instincts and altruistic actions could both stem from the hormone oxytocin.

The amygdala isn’t the only part of the body that can help us learn more about altruism. Also playing a key role is oxytocin, a peptide hormone that’s linked to nurturing behaviors.

Oxytocin encourages the parental instinct in people to care for children. In a study carried out by the author, participants received a small nasal dose of oxytocin. They were then asked to look at a series of pictures of faces.

Literacy could be an answer to increasing empathy and reducing violence around the world.

Out of all the countries around the globe, Myanmar ranks first on the World Giving Index, making its citizens the most generous and empathetic people on earth. But did you know that Myanmar also boasts a literacy rate of over 90 percent? Let’s see if there’s a connection between these two statistics.

If the connection exists, then increasing literacy may be a solution to raising levels of empathy in populations.

The Buddhist practice of compassion meditation is a good way to begin the path to altruism.

Like most good things in life, altruism doesn’t appear out of thin air. The kidney donors that participated in the author’s study a few blinks back didn’t become altruistic overnight; the truth is that they routinely carried out charitable acts, such as donating blood and volunteering.

Thus, it appears altruism is developed through time and practice.

Key ideas in The Fear Factor