The science of fear, and other musings on behavioral psychology. - General

Before I begin my monologue, I want to make it clear that I am not qualified to speak on the subject of psychology, having only a couple of crash courses related to my field of study, and not having any diploma or degree. As such, everything I say here should be taken with a grain of salt, and as with anything else, critically analysed. I welcome those who have more insight into matters to correct me wherever necessary. The news likes carrying stories that document topics likely to get people upset. It boosts their ratings, whether that news is in text, on the radio, or on TV. One recent trend has been police shootings under questionable circumstances, because there's nothing like a little anti-establishment sentiment to ensure that they have controversial stories about the backlash to cover for the next month or so. Anyway, without getting too political or cynical, I'll get to the meat of the subject. I recently noticed that courses on social, criminal, or clinical psychology tend to begin by discussing the different parts of the brain and their functions - With a focus on the limbic system. While at first I did not pay too much attention to this, being more interested in behavioral tendencies, I recently had to work on a project which led me to do some independent research into anxiety disorders. Here's a very basic diagram of the brain's limbic system so there's a visual aid. [img]http://goo.gl/xkMUvS[/img] One thing I learned that really fascinated me was about the 'fight or flight' response. Ever wonder why the 'temporary insanity' claim is a valid defense in court? Why cops sometimes shoot people who turned out to be unarmed? Why riots tend to happen and the madness spreads like wildfire among large groups of otherwise peaceful protesters and sports fans? Apparently, neuroscience 101 has an answer. The limbic system is a term used to describe the series of structures in the brain that dictate our emotional responses and our reactions to changing situations, among other functions. I'm not going to go into exhaustive detail on every single part and what it's there for, I just want to focus on the interaction of two important parts - The prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. The prefrontal cortex(located in the frontal lobe) allows us to think critically, make calculations on the fly, reflect and rationalize, and analyze the data our sensory organs are reporting. Most of the time, this is the part in control, as you can plan your next action and take your time to decide what you're going to do in response to something. The amygdalas, on the other hand, are a part of the brain closely linked with emotional responses and instinctive reactions to things - Especially aggression and the 'fight or flight' response. As social animals, survival instinct that we've evolved over hundreds of thousands of years has made us particularly good at detecting and reacting to threats - not just from our environment or other species of animals - but from members of our own species. These responses are certainly still primitive, but play a big role in behavioral psychology. When a person is under extremely high levels of emotional stress, as is likely to happen when one is extremely angry, afraid or otherwise upset, the brain, interpreting it as a sign that we're under threat, temporarily disables the prefrontal cortex as the part of the brain in control of our actions, and instead the amygdalas take over, kicking us into survival instinct mode. The amgydala can have varying degrees of control, depending on the magnitude of emotional stress and individual predisposition. And a lot of the time, that emotional response to the situation is to fight. In other words, you suddenly become incapable of thinking things over, weighing probabilities, making rational decisions. The cop that shot that guy reaching into his pocket was terrified, was absolutely sure for no good reason that he was about to pull a gun. The part of the brain that was able to say "Hey, you know that's not reasonable" was no longer driving. That's one reason they ask cops to radio for backup immediately when dealing with persons who become even slightly belligerent. You're a lot less likely to panic with a well-armed friend at your back. In crowds, when protesting or after a sports game, some asshole's going to be so angry or in such high spirits that they do something stupid. Like kicking over a trash can. Then the group of other people in a similar state of mind to that guy, who didn't want to be the first to act, follow suit, figuring that it isn't so bad if someone's already doing it. Someone tosses a pebble. A car window gets smashed. You're that guy standing a little way further back, and if it's a protest, you showed up because you want the government to take notice and change things for the better. You're not the sort to want to riot. As you see things start to spiral out of control, you get scared. The fear mingles with your discontent, putting you under a lot of stress. As things escalate, the crowd gets louder and the pandemonium fills your ears, something snaps. You stop thinking, and instinct is now driving. Instinct tells you that you're in a crowd of a lot of very angry people, and if you want to survive, you'd best stay on their side and do as they do. This response spreads like wildfire, and before you know it you're smashing windows, torching cars, and helping push city buses over along with hundreds of other people. The cops, on their end, are very scared, too. They really ought not to beat the protesters they arrest, but sometimes they aren't thinking, just like you. The reason they're not doing things as horrible as the crowd is probably because they're well trained and drilled, and training drills help regulate behavior when you can't think. And this is why we all suck. I want you guys to put in your two cents on the subject, share some stories and ideas - not just on fear and anger, but on different behavioral quirks.

There's a book I've been reading recently which may or may not interest you - "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker. It doesn't focus on the neurology of fear so much as the external causes for it - its premise is that we tend to subconsciously pick up on context clues alerting us of danger before we can logically analyze them (this is why people who narrowly escaped situations immediately before they became violent sometimes don't even know why they had that impulse to leave until after they've talked through it and realized details that they hadn't consciously interpreted before). In situations that are about to become violent, sometimes we'll get an overwhelming instinct to behave a certain way before we logically know why. He goes in depth about some of the context clues (referred to as Pre-Incident Indicators) that can aid in predicting violence.

[QUOTE]hippocampus (Think of it as the brain's switchboard) interprets that as a sign that we are under threat. [/QUOTE] That's not really correct. The hippocampus doesn't interpret anything it's function is storing data by connecting it with neurons located in the neo-cortex. The "brains switchboard" is the thalamus. This is where sensory information goes in and comes it. Other than that you are pretty spot on. You are right when it comes to the pre-frontal cortex reducing activity. This is especially notable with addicted people. In our class we compared MRT scans from people with a cocaine addiction to those of a control group who've never taken cocaine and are not addicted to any other drugs. The notable thing was the difference in the prefrontal cortex: The control group had much more activity going on there while the addicts all showed a highly reduced activity. No wonder these people are addicted when the part of the brain which is responsible for controlling yourself is literallly turned off.

[QUOTE=The Saiko;47200843]That's not really correct. The hippocampus doesn't interpret anything it's function is storing data by connecting it with neurons located in the neo-cortex. The "brains switchboard" is the thalamus. This is where sensory information goes in and comes it. Other than that you are pretty spot on. You are right when it comes to the pre-frontal cortex reducing activity. This is especially notable with addicted people. In our class we compared MRT scans from people with a cocaine addiction to those of a control group who've never taken cocaine and are not addicted to any other drugs. The notable thing was the difference in the prefrontal cortex: The control group had much more activity going on there while the addicts all showed a highly reduced activity. No wonder [B]these people[/B] are addicted when the part of the brain which is responsible for controlling yourself is literallly turned off.[/QUOTE] I don't mean to undermine this discussion but I do want to point out that any person can be addicted to a substance. Maybe you didn't mean to phrase it that way but it implies that addicts were destined to become addicts when it can be the other way around (if that isn't what you meant, my apologies). Addiction is hard to break for a reason, because you have manipulated your reward system. The nucleus accumbens job in the evolution sense is to keep you pursuing pleasures and avoiding pains. After years of drug use (depending on the drug) or compulsive activities one can change how the reward system functions as well as other brain systems, and to reverse that damage will take a lot of effort just as it was to become addicted in the first place. On topic of the subject and to tie in with Saiko's studies; fear, pain, and stress, are all reasons why [I]some[/I] people turn to drug use. If we all know the dangers of habitual drug use then why do people still slip into addiction? Maybe part of the answer explained here, how the more primal, emotional/irrational part of the brain takes over in stressful situations over the prefrontal cortex. When we have the time to sit back and analyze a situation from safety we can utilize our prefrontal cortex, but when shit hits the fan and you have to decide right then and there your primal brain takes over. People who face depression, anxiety, sexual dysphoria, or any other sort of pain or stress use the drug to cope. So could it be said that when one is using for those reasons that in some way this phenomenon (the OP) is responsible? In essence, is the satisfaction of coping with stress with a drug right then and there caused by the impulsiveness of the limbic system? I just wanted to throw that possibility into discussion.

[QUOTE=The Saiko;47200843]That's not really correct. The hippocampus doesn't interpret anything it's function is storing data by connecting it with neurons located in the neo-cortex. The "brains switchboard" is the thalamus. This is where sensory information goes in and comes it. Other than that you are pretty spot on. You are right when it comes to the pre-frontal cortex reducing activity. This is especially notable with addicted people. In our class we compared MRT scans from people with a cocaine addiction to those of a control group who've never taken cocaine and are not addicted to any other drugs. The notable thing was the difference in the prefrontal cortex: The control group had much more activity going on there while the addicts all showed a highly reduced activity. No wonder these people are addicted when the part of the brain which is responsible for controlling yourself is literallly turned off.[/QUOTE] Thanks for that, amigo. Making a correction to the OP.

[QUOTE=Cpn Crunch21;47200987]I don't mean to undermine this discussion but I do want to point out that any person can be addicted to a substance. Maybe you didn't mean to phrase it that way but it implies that addicts were destined to become addicts when it can be the other way around (if that isn't what you meant, my apologies). Addiction is hard to break for a reason, because you have manipulated your reward system. The nucleus accumbens job in the evolution sense is to keep you pursuing pleasures and avoiding pains. After years of drug use (depending on the drug) or compulsive activities one can change how the reward system functions as well as other brain systems, and to reverse that damage will take a lot of effort just as it was to become addicted in the first place. On topic of the subject and to tie in with Saiko's studies; fear, pain, and stress, are all reasons why [I]some[/I] people turn to drug use. If we all know the dangers of habitual drug use then why do people still slip into addiction? Maybe part of the answer explained here, how the more primal, emotional/irrational part of the brain takes over in stressful situations over the prefrontal cortex. When we have the time to sit back and analyze a situation from safety we can utilize our prefrontal cortex, but when shit hits the fan and you have to decide right then and there your primal brain takes over. People who face depression, anxiety, sexual dysphoria, or any other sort of pain or stress use the drug to cope. So could it be said that when one is using for those reasons that in some way this phenomenon (the OP) is responsible? In essence, is the satisfaction of coping with stress with a drug right then and there caused by the impulsiveness of the limbic system? I just wanted to throw that possibility into discussion.[/QUOTE] I really didn't mean to phrase it that way and I didn't want to group them together like that. I totally agree that everyone can get addicted and I didn't want to imply that people are somehow destined to become addicted. This discussion really makes me miss my Bio-psychology course.