Fear-mongering has become a routinely deployed weapon in today's sensationalist media discourse. I'd like to think most of us recognize this is problematic, even if we can't quite articulate why. Professor Pasternak discusses in a recent article at The Conversation a bit about the psychology of fear and the implications it has for our learning and our behavior:
"Terrifying experiences often get imprinted in our memory; remembering frightening events is essential to avoid them in future. It is a normal reaction that promotes our survival.
This strong connection between fear and memory may lead us to think fear can be an effective learning tool. Research shows, however, fear can have long-term negative consequences for children and adults alike – and can actually make it harder to learn in meaningful ways.
...
If children are faced with experiences that trigger fear, they learn to avoid new experiences – as opposed to exploring, engaging, and approaching the unknown with curiosity."
I recommend giving the whole article a gander - it covers more than can be summarized in a few short snippits. Part of why fear-mongering is so problematic is that it causes us to shut down and stop exploring and stop learning. That makes for fertile grounds for rising intolerance and prejudice of the unfamiliar or anything considered "not like me." Dr. Pasternak mentions how adults play a crucial role in how children learn about fear and the importance of providing a safe environment. Thinking back to your own childhood, did you grow up in a safe environment relatively free from fears, or where adults constantly telling you to "be careful" and spilling their adult anxieties onto the kids? Did this then impact your own relationship with fear as you got older? Has some other life event changed your relationship with fear and a sense of safety?
I would say I grew up in a reasonably free and safe household, with not too much cosseting, and with two slightly older brothers, this probably kept me safe to some extent (but see later) - given that my mother started working nights after I was about six or so. Hence I perhaps wasn't that much under her care during the day as I probably should have been (her sleeping and dad at work) and I did have a number of trauma incidents as a child - fractured knee whilst out on my own and a penetrating head injury, both around age eight. As children we went to many funfairs and all the family went on the more exciting rides, so perhaps I learnt from my parents' behaviour here.
But perhaps my parents didn't know what we got up to as children - like breaking into bombed-out old buildings (theatre) or crossing railway lines (some electrified) and such - much of this because of course I had older brothers and pestered them to take me along on their various adventures, as kids tend to do.
Being lost at a beach when about age two or three was seemingly my first memory, and such being quite traumatic it seems, given I can still recall this in quite some detail. I tended to be quite shy as a child but after joining the Scouts around age 11, I went in for all the various activities and probably learnt enough to conquer any fears I might have had. And where many of the activities first tasted with the Scouts subsequently led on to caving, rock-climbing, mountaineering, and sailing as a youth. All of which gradually enabled me to become more confident and often to do some of these on my own. Overall, I learnt to take calculated risks, and to make sure I had minimised those that I could and to avoid the ones that one only makes the once.
Having some good companions obviously helps too.
As to schooling, well this did occur whilst corporal punishment was still very common - and I got my fair share of such - but this apparently didn't affect my behaviour or learning - just seeing this as something to put up with and I never felt anger towards any of the teachers.
