Don't Fear the Tiger

Don't Fear the Tiger: The Evolutionary Role of Anxiety
by Jowita Kiwnik Pargana from Prezekroj Magazine (revised)

We find it easier to remember unpleasant events than nice ones, we notice an angry face more easily than a happy one, we are quicker to dislike something than to like it. This is because our brain works like it did thousands of years ago. 
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Taught to fear As the American neuropsychologist Rick Hanson observes in his book Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence, our brain evolved to learn quickly and draw conclusions from bad experiences. This approach had an adaptative function, as concentrating on dangers helped our ancestors survive. The crucial role was played by fear. The fear of being attacked and eaten by a predator, the fear of other, hostile groups of people, an encounter with whom could end tragically. 

“Our ancestors could make two kinds of mistakes: (1) thinking there was a tiger in the bushes when there wasn’t one, and (2) thinking there was no tiger in the bushes when there actually was one. The cost of the first mistake was needless anxiety, while the cost of the second one was death,” Hanson writes. “Consequently, we evolved to make the first mistake a thousand times to avoid making the second mistake even once.” 

This way, anxiety has become virtually impressed into our DNA. “It is believed that anxiety, as an emotion or a mechanism that enabled us to survive as a species, is encoded in us,” confirms Karol Grabowski, a psychiatrist and cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist from Gdańsk Medical University.

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