Fearfulness
In personality psychology and clinical psychology, anxiety is a mixed mood, in which a pleasurable experience arises from an oppressive phase of fear itself or from successfully surviving and coping with it .
term
Fearfulness is a term that has grown over centuries in the German cultural area. The phenomenon has been known since antiquity from Greek legends and from Greek tragedy poetry and treated for example by Aristotle in his tragedy theory and the Nicomachean ethics (VII, 14 and X): According to Aristotle, Greek tragedy should be fear (phobos) and pity ( eleos) to get to a cleansing ( catharsis ) of the emotions.
Great playwrights in German literary history such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Heinrich von Kleist , Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang Goethe have worked with fearfulness in their works and have given it a theoretical foundation.
The experience sought by people of both sexes and of different ages in very different life situations, such as tests of courage , in amusement centers or in venture sports , was examined more thoroughly by the Hungarian psychoanalyst Michael Balint for the first time in the 1950s and presented in a monograph . In the title of the German translation, the term "fearfulness" was used for the term thrill . The term regression has been retained. In his foreword to the German edition, however, Balint expressly warns the reader not to equate the terms thrill and lust for fear. Both have a clearly distinguishable meaning and cannot be transferred with the same content. “ Thrill” is therefore simply untranslatable, and consequently it is impossible to speak “German” about it. This is a great difficulty which the reader of this book must always be aware of. (P. 6)
In the oriented stress experience circle of thrill , thrill , kick , adventure search emphasizes the term anxiety like especially the emotional interaction and interaction between two contrary emotional experiences, with the one with the other either mix or may arise from it below.
phenomenology
The lust for fear is a borderline form of the fear as well as the pleasure experience. The sensation of pleasure can arise from an overcoming fear, whereby this is a prerequisite for the subsequent pleasure experience. The exhilarating sensation results from the contrast to and a release from a fearful, unpleasant emotional state. This means having to dare to face the negative experience in anticipation of the second phase.
A lust for fear can also establish itself while enjoying fear. This requires an external view of one's own feelings. A psychological distance from what is happening is crucial in order to withstand the tension. Achieving this represents an act of gradual dissociation and, in the form of a meta-position, can also have beneficial effects on the experience.
The immediate pleasure of fear can be realized in different forms:
The masochist consciously exposes himself to the agony of a threatening situation and transforms the normally associated feelings of discomfort into pleasurable feelings for him.
Those interested in the thrill experience enjoy the horror that emanates from monsters , serial killers , vampires , as a viewer with a "pleasant shudder". Natural disasters and places of disaster exert an almost magical attraction on many people, which is reflected in the terms “disaster tourism”, “curiosity”, “gawking”. Risky stunt performances are often attended with the subliminal expectation that something terrible, spectacular might happen that one wants to be fascinated by. The psychologist Siegbert A. Warwitz differentiates between the "live thrill", an experience of fearfulness in which the authentic fearful experience is sought, and the "media thrill", in which the desired experiences of tension are created through medial communication: while one In the live thrill, if you are personally and physically involved in the fear-pleasure experience, the media thrill takes place from a safe distance on a primarily psychological level - for example by reading detective novels, listening to horror stories, watching cinematic thrillers or war films. The practice of certain computer games (horror games), in which the player is the doer, but the thrill takes place on a purely psychological level, represents a mixture of action and the harmless experience of shuddering.
According to Michael Balint , those who voluntarily expose themselves to danger, but are borne by the confidence that they can cope with the danger and the associated fear and everything will end well, feel a lust for fear . The mixture of fear, bliss and hope in the face of external danger is the basic element of all anxiety .
Fearfulness in real experience
Own experience
Tests of courage
can be seen as classic forms of experiencing fearfulness: When children venture into the dark cellar, to a feared animal, to a forbidden property, they also test their resistance to the associated fears. Young people experience similar things in their illegal car races, having their first sex, surfing the S-Bahn , balconing or base jumping .
Adventure sports
Playing with high-performance motorcycles is not only appealing because of its sporty character, but also because of the risk potential that can be lived out in acceleration, speed, cornering, group races or special “driving tricks”. A. Engeln has presented his own study on the mentality of this group of athletes.
The "pleasure in fear" is often mistakenly assumed as a general motivation for risky activities, especially in sporting areas. In addition, it is sometimes thought that venturing athletes such as paragliders or extreme mountaineers enter dangers and the associated threats to their health and life in order to be able to return to the safe area as safely as possible after a phase of fear.
However, these assessments fall short in view of the extremely complex problem area: The psychologists and risk researchers JC Brengelmann and SA Warwitz have created differentiated personality profiles and motivational typologies on a scientific basis, which represent the facets of the possibilities of experiencing fearfulness more realistically.
Brengelmann refers to the individually different requirements for dealing with the risk and corresponding emotional experiences. Warwitz argues with the “structural law of the car”, which he developed in series studies on an empirical basis. This means that the point of striving for fearfulness is not limited to giving up already existing securities in order to regain the same securities after a phase of fear and threat. According to the depth psychological research by Michael Balint or Carl Gustav Jung, such risky action should be classified as psychopathic because renouncing the dangerous situation with the same effect is the more sensible solution. Rather, with the acceptance of a threat and the "exposure" to a phase of fear, an added value is expected in most cases. This desired gain in meaning and value could consist, for example, in reaching a higher, more demanding security level after a phase of fear and danger. It could be worthwhile as an impulse for the development of the personality (accomplish an unexpected examination achievement), contribute to the improvement of the quality of life (practice a venture sport) or mean a social achievement in the community (practice civil courage).
exhibitionism
In the area of sexuality, fearfulness is sometimes sought in the form of fear of being discovered in a precarious situation and a correspondingly increased sensation of pleasure: for some, it seems that living out sexuality in public parks or in non-locked rooms, where one can be surprised by others People exert an increased sensation of pleasure through fear. Such practices are popular with exhibitionists . Some so-called streaker be (Engl. "Streaker") appear imperceptibly and suddenly naked or only with a hat or a mask wearing on public roads or places on, only to disappear just as quickly before they identified, disgraced and taken for public indecency can.
Spectator experience
Bullfights, circus acrobatics, high wire demonstrations, aerobatic events offer opportunities for a larger audience to follow events that create anxiety without knowing that they are in immediate danger. The matadors , the bull runners in Pamplona , the fire-eaters , the partners of the knife throwers, the acrobats in the big top, on the high wire or at the air show run into dangers in which the audience is excited but not affected. The viewer can even experience empathy as positive when the acting heroes suffer or have an accident. Trembling along and mourning is experienced as a warm meta-emotion. Even serial killers can sometimes evoke a horrific, mixed sympathy in the viewer.
Fearfulness in media experience
Print media
Horror tales, sagas, legends, vampire stories, detective novels
Even small children love and enjoy fairy tales that deal with terrible events such as the threat to the " Seven Little Goats " from the wolf, who is finally sunk into the well weighted with stones, the threat to " Hansel and Gretel " from the wicked witch who being burned in one's own furnace or the pursuit of Snow White by the vain stepmother. They also invent exciting stories themselves that make each other shudder.
Legends of martyrs who carry their severed heads under their arms ( Dionysius of Paris ), or legends such as that of the child-murdering Wieland from the Thidrek saga , may follow in the next age groups. Adults find a fearful experience with vampire stories and detective novels . Because of this natural primal need, the attempted indexing or "rewording" of traditional children's literature such as folk tales , fables , Struwwelpeter or Max and Moritz is criticized by individual educators as being unrealistic, since children already see through the symbolic level behind the real level and the lust for fear as a thought and fantasy game to be able to enjoy.
From the point of view of the child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim , the old fairy tales are even indispensable for the formation of fantasies and personality development in children.
Electronic media
Computer games, video games
Computer and video games are so technically mature and realistic that they can stress gamers so intensely psychologically that fearfulness can be experienced at the gaming table. In doing so, the awareness that the threat scenarios take place entirely in the virtual area and that there is no physical danger at all is ignored.
Movies
Westerns, war films, psychological thrillers, agent thrillers
Alfred Hitchcock is an old master of cinematic staging of anxiety. His thriller Psycho from 1960 and The Birds (film) from 1963, which have been fascinating for generations, are considered to be important masterpieces of film art.
Horror films, war stagings and thrillers of all kinds are an integral part of almost all television programs. They meet a widespread need and, in people with strong visual imaginations and empathetic empathy, have the potential to achieve and resolve anxiety states. Here, too, one often loses consciousness that the scenarios are invented or acted out that do not really affect or even threaten one's own or someone else's life.
Other media reality
Pictures, rooms, objects
Artistic or photographic snapshots can also trigger shudders and feelings of fearfulness with magical attraction: The exhibition “Black Romanticism” with gray recipients like Francisco de Goya in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt proved to be a crowd puller. Visitor records were achieved with graphic cycles such as “Pinturas negras”, where Saturn devours one of his sons, Tauromaquia with its exciting bullfighting scenes or the series of images Desastres de la Guerra with its bizarre and ambivalent depictions of warlike horror.
An obvious need to enjoy horror can be seen, for example, in visits to former concentration camps, places of execution, and places of disaster. Almost no medieval castle museum and no castle tour do without the obligatory dungeons, torture chambers and torture instruments that cast a spell over entire families.
research results
The German-American psychologist Kurt Lewin recognized as early as 1935 that fearful situations trigger a behavioral controversy between “ appetite behavior ” and “aversion behavior ”, between an almost magical attraction and a protective defensive reaction. Early anxiety research was based on psychological disorders when looking for unpleasant dangerous situations. For example, the depth psychological orientation was based on neurotic symptoms of illness: According to Michael Balint, the repeated striving to give up and regain security has its roots in the trauma of early childhood separation experiences that have to be overcome. The phenomenon analysis by John S. Dollard and Neal E. Miller is also based on the classification of the anxiety striving as a behavioral disorder in need of treatment: By shifting the focus to the fearful situation, the oppressive state of tension in the approach-avoidance conflict paralyzes the "natural" Avoidance behavior. The possible gain in pleasure takes on masochistic-perverse traits.
Today's venture research has corrected the idea of anxiety as a pure clinical picture and, on the basis of extensive experimental psychological and ethnological investigations, comes to a more differentiated consideration of the problem area: anxiety is demonstrably all over the world of healthy children and adolescents, for example in the form of secret and open ones Tests of courage, wanted. These are part of a natural, sensible and educationally desirable development and self-discovery process. The search for fearfulness can still be historically proven as a driving element in dynamic youth cultures , for example the youth movement at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, experiencing fearfulness has an important function in adventure sports , which is used by high-performance athletes to intensify their attitude towards life and to increase their perceived quality of life.
Today's view also differentiates between the different human mentalities , for example between the stimulus avoider and the stimulus seeker, which Balint had already characterized as oknophiles or philobaths in extreme typology . It also takes into account the important optimal fear level according to the stimulus laws developed by the behavioral biologists Robert Yerkes and John D. Dodson .
The level of knowledge moves the development impulses arising from the skillful handling of fear more into focus, which accompany every venture and every progress. It is also not lost sight of the fact that the search for fearfulness is usually of a voluntary nature and is borne by the confidence that the anxiety phase to be overcome can be successfully overcome.
For this purpose, learning processes are required that enable a situation-appropriate fear attitude to be found.
See also
literature
- Michael Apter: In the intoxication of danger. Why more and more people are looking for the thrill . Munich 1994. (Original title: The Dangerous Edge. The Psychology of Excitement . New York 1992)
- Michael Balint: Anxiety and Regression. 4th edition. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-608-95635-2 .
- Ferdinand Bitz: Adventure and Risk. On the psychology of staged danger . Lueneburg 2005.
- Johannes C. Brengelmann: Risk-Pleasure Dispositions . Vaduz 1989.
- David Le Breton: Pleasure in risk . Frankfurt 1995.
- John S. Dollard, Neal E. Miller: Personality and psychotherapy . New York 1950.
- A. Engeln: Risk motivation - a pedagogical-psychological study on motorcycling . Marburg 1995.
- A. Kraft, G. Ortmann (Ed.): Computer and Psyche. Fearfulness at the computer . Frankfurt 1988.
- HW Krohne: Fear and coping with fear . Stuttgart 1996.
- S. Piet: Het loon van de angst. (The wages of fear) Baarn 1987.
- Marcus Roth, Philipp Hammelstein (ed.): Sensation Seeking. Conception, diagnostics, application . Hogrefe-Verlag, Göttingen 2003.
- Martin Scholz: Adventure-Risk-Adventure. Orientations of meaning in sport . Verlag Hofmann, Schorndorf 2005, ISBN 3-7780-0151-5 .
- Gert Semler: The pleasure of fear. Why people voluntarily expose themselves to extreme risks . Munich 1994.
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: The fear-pleasure theory . In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings . Baltmannsweiler 2001, pp. 142-167.
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: From the sense of the car. Why people face dangerous challenges . In: DAV (Ed.): Berg 2006 . Munich-Innsbruck-Bozen 2005, ISBN 3-937530-10-X , pp. 96–111.
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: Avoid fear - seek fear - learn to fear . In: thing-word-number. 112 (2010) 10-15
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior . 2., ext. Edition, Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1620-1 .
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: Growing in Risk. From the contribution to your own development . In: thing-word-number. 93 (2008), ISSN 0949-6785 , pp. 25-37.
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: Forms of fear behavior . In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2001, ISBN 3-89676-358-X .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wolfgang Schadewaldt: fear and pity. On the interpretation of Aristotelian tragedy . In: Hermes. 83: 129-171 (1955).
- ↑ a b Michael Balint: Anxiety and Regression. Stuttgart 1959. Foreword, p. 5.
- ↑ Marcus Roth, Philipp Hammelstein (Ed.): Sensation Seeking. Conception, diagnostics, application . Goettingen 2003
- ^ A b Siegbert A. Warwitz: When woe and bliss alternate. The fear-pleasure theory . In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior . 2., ext. Edition, Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1620-1 , pp. 142-167
- ^ S. Piet: Het loon van de angst (The reward of fear) Baarn 1987
- ^ A b Siegbert A. Warwitz: Search for meaning in the venture. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior . 2., ext. Edition, Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1620-1
- ↑ Michael Balint: Anxiety and Regression. Stuttgart 1994
- ↑ A. Engeln: Risk Motivation - an educational-psychological study on motorcycling . Marburg 1995
- ↑ Michael Apter: In the intoxication of danger. Why more and more people are looking for the thrill . Munich 1994.
- ↑ Gert Semler: The pleasure of fear. Why people voluntarily expose themselves to extreme risks . Munich 1994
- ↑ David Le Breton: Pleasure at Risk . Frankfurt 1995.
- ↑ Anxiety and regression. Description of the work from Klett-Cotta-Verlag
- ^ Johannes C. Brengelmann: Risk-Pleasure Dispositions . Vaduz 1989.
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: From the sense of the car. Why people face dangerous challenges . In: DAV (Ed.): Berg 2006 . Munich / Innsbruck / Bozen 2005, pp. 96–111
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: The structural law of the car . In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior . 2., ext. Edition, Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1620-1 , pp. 22-25
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: The miraculous effect of the car . In: Ders .: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Attempts to explain cross-border behavior. 2., ext. Edition, Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1620-1 , pp. 13–31
- ↑ Prohibited charms: 15 seconds of sheer madness. on: one day . November 22, 2007
- ↑ Eric G. Wilson: Everyone loves a good train wreck. Why we can't look away . New York 2012
- ↑ Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek: The fear in fairy tales. In: Ders .: Affect Poetics. A cultural history of literary emotions. Würzburg 2005, pp. 287-318
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Controversial forms of play . In: Dies .: The sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . Baltmannsweiler 2004, pp. 35-36
- ↑ Bruno Bettelheim: Children need fairy tales. 20th edition. Frankfurt am Main 1997
- ↑ A. Kraft, G. Ortmann (Ed.): Computer und Psyche. Fearfulness at the computer . Frankfurt 1988
- ↑ Georg Seeßlen: Thriller. Cinema of fear . Stir up. Marburg 1995
- ^ Kurt Lewin: Principles of a topological psychology . Bern, Stuttgart-Vienna 1969
- ↑ John S. Dollard, Neal E. Miller: Personality and psychotherapy . New York 1950
- ↑ Martin Scholz: Adventure-Risk-Adventure. Orientations of meaning in sport . Schorndorf 2005
- ^ Ferdinand Bitz: Adventure and Risk. On the psychology of staged danger . Lueneburg 2005
- ^ Robert Yerkes, John D. Dodson: The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation . In: Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 18 (1908), pp. 459-482.
- ^ HW Krohne: Anxiety and coping with fear . Stuttgart 1996
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: Avoiding Fear - Searching for Fear - Learning to Fear . In: thing-word-number. 112 (2010) 10-15