hungarianchick 0 #51 August 19, 2004 Fear is a learned emotion in humans. A small child is not automatically scared of the things the average adult is scared of. A child will not fear a venomous snake or a large dog unless he observes fear in people around him. If you saw infants getting their first swimming lesson you don't see fear some adults have of bodies of water. That 3 year old in the theater watching AVP may not have bean scared of the images on the screen but he may have had reacted to the other movigoers' actions and dramatic sound effects. Either way, it was a bad idea to take him. PS. I thought I also mention that a child of that age should be supervised while eating, but in this case I'm sure he wasn't. It's really tragic. "I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
storm1977 0 #52 August 20, 2004 At 3yrs I saw ET and it scared the shit out of me. The scene where the men are dressed in space suits walking through tunnels into the house.... At 3 I had no experience of space suits or tunnels, and the image was 2-D. Still, It scared many children inclusing myself. Again, fear is instinctual.... Stand a 3 yr old in the middle of the street and have a car drive at him/her at 50mph. Slam on the brakes and have it stop just short of hitting the kid....... I have 1million $$$$ on a beat that that 3 yr old will either shit his or her pants and or break down into tears. Specific fear such as phobias are learned through experience.... But fear is insticual. Ask any shrink!! Chris ----------------------------------------------------- Sometimes it is more important to protect LIFE than Liberty Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenister 0 #53 August 20, 2004 your mistaking the cause. sit a child in a nice safe room and then introduce a sudden loud noise and the kid will scream too... Your wrong about fear, with a very few exceptions fear is a learned behavior, try asking a child psychologist. Loud noises may startle a child and create a 'crying response' but that is not fear it is suprise, and the baby has a limited set of responses to suprise. Most babies enjoy being tossed in the air, they have no fear of falling, they dont know that the ground will hurt them.. The root of all fear is death, a baby doesnt know what death is to be afraid of it.. Humans have few natural instincts, many of the ones that remain are so repressed in many people that they have no effect at all...____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
turtlespeed 226 #54 August 20, 2004 Quote Most babies enjoy being tossed in the air, they have no fear of falling, they dont know that the ground will hurt them.. The root of all fear is death, a baby doesnt know what death is to be afraid of it.. GOD I miss that! Oh - wait - I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 3,120 #55 August 20, 2004 >Most babies enjoy being tossed in the air, they have no fear of falling . . . A six month old will recoil in fear from a precipitous drop. It's instinctual, intended to prevent kids from falling out of trees and off cliffs. We have a few instinctual fears - heights, to prevent falls; claustrophobia, to prevent suffocation; agoraphobia, to prevent attacks by plains animals - that are expressed to a lesser or greater degree depending on the person. Most people overcome these fears and they don't affect them much, but other people don't, and often a whole host of other activities falls out of these fears (not getting on elevators etc.) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyDekker 1,465 #56 August 20, 2004 QuoteA six month old will recoil in fear from a precipitous drop. very true, I know my four month old really doesn't like being trown in the air. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
peacefuljeffrey 0 #57 August 21, 2004 Quote>Most babies enjoy being tossed in the air, they have no fear of falling . . . A six month old will recoil in fear from a precipitous drop. It's instinctual, intended to prevent kids from falling out of trees and off cliffs. We have a few instinctual fears - heights, to prevent falls; claustrophobia, to prevent suffocation; agoraphobia, to prevent attacks by plains animals - that are expressed to a lesser or greater degree depending on the person. You're citing phobias and calling them "instincts"?? I think that's not valid. We do not, as a rule, have "instinctual fears" of heights and open spaces, or even of closed spaces. There are many people who do not suffer inordinately from such fears. These things are rightly called "phobias" because they are aberrent, and irrational. Besides, these things, even if they were true "instincts," are not "designed" into us because there is no program or goal to our evolution. Rather than "designed," they may have developed over time -- the common means for this is believed to be natural selection against those ill-suited to survive. That's not the same as being implanted with a trait, as "designed" implies. Quote Most people overcome these fears and they don't affect them much, but other people don't, and often a whole host of other activities falls out of these fears (not getting on elevators etc.) Again, you're implying that we all, as a rule start out with these fears and then "overcome" them in order to function normally. I believe this is not so. --Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
peacefuljeffrey 0 #58 August 21, 2004 QuoteAt 3yrs I saw ET and it scared the shit out of me. The scene where the men are dressed in space suits walking through tunnels into the house.... At 3 I had no experience of space suits or tunnels, and the image was 2-D. Still, It scared many children inclusing myself. Haven't you ever watched a scary movie on t.v. at home and turned the sound off? It took the scariness right out of the movie, didn't it? How much you wanna bet that when you saw E.T. at 3 years old, most of the fear you manifested about the tunnels was precipitated by the menacing music -- a much more universally scary thing is music, particularly deep tones, which impart much menace, as a booming adult voice can do to a child. I'd bet that if you had watched that same "scary" scene with no sound, you wouldn't have been scared at all. QuoteAgain, fear is instinctual.... Stand a 3 yr old in the middle of the street and have a car drive at him/her at 50mph. Slam on the brakes and have it stop just short of hitting the kid....... I have 1million $$$$ on a beat that that 3 yr old will either shit his or her pants and or break down into tears. The discussion here is about whether that is INSTINCTIVE or not. It's easily argued that by 3 years old, the kid UNDERSTANDS the principle of GETTING HIT BY THINGS well enough that he knows to fear it, and the pain it can cause. QuoteSpecific fear such as phobias are learned through experience.... But fear is insticual. Ask any shrink!! First billvon says phobias are INSTINCT, now you say they're LEARNED... I say they're probably more likely a result of a misdevelopment, maybe even biochemically induced. I certainly do not believe that phobias arise from learning to fear things. If that were true, I suspect they would be MUCH less difficult to treat. --Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
