BW: But all animals don’t respond in the same way to danger…
Over the course of evolution, the survival strategies required for life have remained the same. By default, detection of danger, incorporation of nutrients, balancing fluids and ions, and reproduction are survival requirements of all species. But the way different species do these will depend on the kind of body they have. Fish swim, birds fly, mammals run (but also some swim or fly).
So what’s universal is not the behavior, or even the brain structures or mechanisms. What’s the same is the biological need to survive, which requires that you detect and respond to danger. Your body will have that ability in it because it’s necessary for life, not because it has some role in our psychology. We know humans experience fear, but scientifically it’s hard to know what other animals experience. That doesn’t mean they lack experience. We all (me included) assume our pets love us and are happy when we feed them. But that is an assumption, not a scientific fact. Those are different.
BW: Let’s talk about emotion. How do you describe emotion?
JL: There are two broad ways that scientists think about emotions these days. One is a Darwinian approach. He called emotions “states of mind” inherited from our mammalian ancestors by way of inheriting their nervous system. For example, in this view, fear would be a product of such a brain process and when activated by danger the mental state of fear would cause the animal or human to respond. When research I and other did implicated the amygdala in responding to danger, it was natural to then think of the amygdala was a fear center — the source of fear — and that this fear in the amygdala caused the responses to danger.
The other approach to emotion emerged in the 1960s when cognitive science came along. In this model, human emotions are not predetermined states inherited from animals. They are cognitive interpretations of situations in which we find ourselves. The behaviors (and accompanying physiological responses) are triggered separately from the experience — but can affect the cognitive interpretation that underlies the experience. My view is that the experience of emotion, the fear itself, happens when you are personally engaged psychologically with the situation.
Some say fear must be universal because people around the world all experience fear. To this, I say that what is universal is danger. Because danger is important to everyone, every culture has words describing it, and stories or narrative about it. Because the words are translated across languages, we assume everyone has the same experience of fear in every culture. But we do not. And on top of that, each individual also develops his or her own narratives about danger. Because everyone in the culture uses that same words, we assume our experiences are all the same. But, again, they are not. They are personal.
So emotions are not predetermined. They are culturally and personally determined. We each have a somewhat unique experience of fear. No self, no fear. In fact, no self, no emotion.
BW: Can we say emotion is an awareness/consciousness of our experience?
JL: Yes, emotion is the conscious awareness of something biologically or psychologically significant happening to you. This results because danger activates a set of memories about danger that can be called your “fear schema.” This schema is a nonconscious template upon which we build our personal experience of fear in a given situation.
When you are a child, your fear schema might start out as a diffuse state of concern, just a sense that something is not right. As you begin to acquire language, you attach words into schemas, and that begins to divide the schema into categories. So maybe anger and fear might be mixed together early in life, but as the child matures and acquires more information, he or she begins to distinguish fear from anger, or panic, or terror. Personal experiences come to be more complex because we have words that separate categories of experience. But just how you differentiate these based on words is personal. So you may come to experience what you call “fear” as a kind of anger-tinged sate. Others may experience it as a kind of exhilaration-tinged state (thrill seekers).
As noted above, because we translate words across culture, and use similar words within a culture, we assume everyone has the same experience of fear or joy or sadness. This may be why it is so hard for people around the world to get along. We think we have similar experiences because we talk about similar things. But that may actually not be the case.
BW: Any message for the general public that might be suffering from fear and anxiety?
Like I mentioned before, it is important to understand that the amygdala is not the fear center of the brain. It does regulate the intensity of fear. This distinction has important implications for problems of fear and anxiety. For instance, the current efforts to develop new medication to treat uncontrollable fear and anxiety are focused totally on the behavioral responses of animals. So the results are disappointing, because the problem has been misconceived. We should not expect that changing the behavior of an animal is going to change the experience of a human.
For example, when on a drug a person with social anxiety might find it easier to go to the party (they might be less timid, less avoidant), but once they’re in the party, they’ll still feel anxious. The person is naturally disappointed since she thought she would be less anxious.
I think the problem is that we have misunderstood emotions like fear and anxiety. They are conscious experiences. The medications can help, but not because they eliminate fear or anxiety. It’s all about what to expect. The psychiatrist might tell the patient, “This drug will reduce your timidity about and avoidance of parties. It won’t eliminate your feeling of anxiety but it might help you manage your anxiety and allow you to have more of a social life.” Then the patient can be clear about what to expect.
BW: At the end of your book, you say that unique aspects of human consciousness account for our greatest achievements as a species but also our most troubling dispositions such as hatred or discrimination. But just as our conscious minds made these problems possible, our minds can find solutions.
JL: I believe consciousness is our only hope for a future. But it can only help if we, as a species, collectively will it to do so. Only through our collective will can we overcome the pursuit of short-term profits and tyranny, which we must do to save humanity and the planet, for future humans and other organisms.
For more on Dr. Joseph LeDoux, author of “The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains,” please visit joseph-ledoux.com.
