Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Faint: Adaptationist Perspectives on the Acute Stress Response Spectrum

Bracha, H. Stefan

doi:10.1017/s1092852900001954

Cited by 368 publications

(240 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…As with any initial foray, this study possessed a number of limitations that warrant consideration but also provide potential fruitful directions for future research. First, we could not investigate the temporal relations as outlined by Bracha (2004) in terms of freeze-flight-fight-fright in this study. However, there were clear relationships between subjective anxiety and the tendency to want to flee as well as perceptions of tonic immobility, which is consistent with current alarm models that link these variables.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Exploring human freeze responses to a threat stressor

Schmidt

Richey

Zvolensky

et al. 2008

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

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Despite the fundamental nature of tonic immobility in anxiety responses, surprisingly little empirical research has focused on the "freeze" response in humans. The present report evaluated frequency and predictors of a freeze response in the context of a biological challenge. A nonclinical sample (N = 404) underwent a 20-sec inhalation of 20% CO 2 /balance O 2 . Perceptions of immobility in the context of the challenge were reported in 13% of the sample, compared to 20% reporting a significant desire to flee. Subjective anxiety and panic during the challenge were associated with the freeze response, as were a number of anxiety symptom dimensions. Keywordsanxiety; freeze; panic; carbon-dioxide BackgroundThe phrase "fight or flight" was coined by Cannon (1927Cannon ( , 1929 in the 1920s to describe key behaviors that occur in the context of perceived threat. This term has not only been influential in later conceptual and empirical work on anxiety and its disorders, but the phrase also has become relatively well-known in popular culture. In the context of anxiety research, the alarm or fear response described by Barlow (2002) reflects an interaction between learning and innate, biological systems designed to help animals adapt to threat. The more contemporary notion of a true or false alarm still contains the two primary features of Cannon's original expression, though the ordering of effects is probably best reversed; flight is the overwhelming action tendency subsequent to an alarm whereas relatively fewer instances of fight responses result Corresponding author: N. B. Schmidt, Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306; Schmidt@psy.fsu.edu; 850-644-1707, 850-644-7739 (fax). Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.This PDF receipt will only be used as the basis for generating PubMed Central (PMC) documents. PMC documents will be made available for review after conversion (approx. 2-3 weeks time). Any corrections that need to be made will be done at that time. No materials will be released to PMC without the approval of an author. Only the PMC documents will appear on PubMed Central --this PDF Receipt will not appear on PubMed Central. Similar to the flight/fight response, a freeze response is believed to have adaptive value. In the context of predatory attack, some animals will freeze or "play dead." This response, often referred to as tonic immobility (Gallup, 1977), includes motor and vocal inhibition with an abrupt initiation and cessation. Ethologists have documented non-volitional freeze responses in several animal specie...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Exploring human freeze responses to a threat stressor

Schmidt

Richey

Zvolensky

et al. 2008

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

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“…In general, people may be divided into two categories: those who fight and those who flight. Other reactions may also include freeze, fright, faint (Bracha, 2004) and negotiate (Traum et al, 2005). People are known to see conflict as a challenge or threat (De Wit et al, 2009).…”

Section: Personality Traits and Conflict Management Stylesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality traits and conflict management styles in predicting job performance and conflict

Ayub

Alqurashi

Al-Yafi

et al. 2017

IJCMA

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.

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“…More recently, we have argued that from a neuroevolutionary (distal etiology) perspective, medically unexplained facial pain, clenching-grinding symptoms, as well as habitual efferent vasovagal neurocardiovascular syncope, are traceable to fear-circuits wired during the early Paleolithic (early Pleistocene) or earlier, and conserved in the human clade, and may be taxonomizable in the fear-circuitry disorders spectrum (Bracha, 2004;Bracha et al, 2005a,b).…”

Section: Distal (Evolutionary) Etiological Perspectives In Psychiatrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Implications for the taxonomy of fear-induced faintness in DSM-V As we have argued in two recent reviews (Bracha, 2004;Bracha et al, 2005a), blood-injection-injury phobia is a pseudo-neurocardiovascular disorder, which is physiologically puzzling and hemodynamically paradoxical when compared with all other anxiety disorders. We posit that blood-injection-injury fears are better conceptualized as part of a new DSM-V bDissociative-Conversive SpectrumQ because of shared features, which are all in the bfaintnessspectrumQ (fear-induced fainting, swooning, bmedically unexplained dizziness,Q and lightheadedness).…”

Section: Toward a Rapprochement Between Dsm And The European Icdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of the human fear-circuitry and acute sociogenic pseudoneurological symptoms: The Neolithic balanced-polymorphism hypothesis

Bracha

Yoshioka

Masukawa

et al. 2005

Journal of Affective Disorders

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In light of the increasing threat of large-scale massacres such as terrorism against non-combatants (civilians), more attention is warranted not only to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but also to acute sociogenic pseudoneurological (bconversionQ) symptoms, especially epidemic sociogenic symptoms. We posit that conversion disorders are etiologically related to specific evolutionary pressures (inescapable threats to life) in the late stage of the human environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA). Bracha et al. have recently argued that from the neuroevolutionary perspective, medically unexplained efferent vasovagal syncope and medically unexplained craniofacial musculoskeletal pain in young otherwise healthy individuals, may be taxonomized as stress and fear-circuitry disorders. In the present article, we extend neuroevolutionary perspectives to acute pseudoneurological sociogenic (bconversiveQ) symptoms: psychogenic non-epileptic attacks (bpseudoseizuresQ), epidemic sociogenic disorders (DSM-IV-TR Epidemic bHysteriaQ), conversive motor deficits (pseudo-paralysis and pseudocerebellar symptoms), and psychogenic blindness. We hypothesize that these perplexing pseudoneurological stress-triggered symptoms, which constitute psychopathology in extant humans, are traceable to allele-variant polymorphisms which spread during the Neolithic EEA. During Neolithic warfare, conversive symptoms may have increased the survival odds for some noncombatants by visually (i.e., bnon-verballyQ) signaling to predatory conspecifics that one does not present a danger. This is consistent with the age and sex pattern of conversive disorders. Testable and falsifiable predictions are presented; e.g., at the genome-transcriptome interface, one of the major oligogenic loci involved in conversive spectrum disorders may carry a developmentally sensitive allele in a stable polymorphism (balanced polymorphism) in which the gene expression mechanism is gradually suppressed by pleiotropic androgens especially dehydroxyepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S). Taxonomic implica-

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Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Faint: Adaptationist Perspectives on the Acute Stress Response Spectrum

Cited by 368 publications

References 47 publications

Exploring human freeze responses to a threat stressor

Exploring human freeze responses to a threat stressor

Personality traits and conflict management styles in predicting job performance and conflict

Evolution of the human fear-circuitry and acute sociogenic pseudoneurological symptoms: The Neolithic balanced-polymorphism hypothesis

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