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Thesis advisor: Michael A. McDannald / Thesis advisor: John P. Christianson / The ability to accurately evaluate and respond to threats is vital to survival. Disruptions in neural circuits of fear give rise to maladaptive threat responding, and have clinical implications in fear and anxiety disorders. To better inform therapeutic interventions, it is imperative that roles for regions classically associated with fear continue to be refined, and that novel nodes are incorporated into what is most certainly a larger fear circuit. In the canonical view, threat estimates are generated at the level of the amygdala and sent to the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG), which organizes an appropriate behavioral response, most notably freezing. Despite a multitude of studies successfully linking the vlPAG and Pavlovian fear behavior, evidence of a direct neural correlate for fear expression in the vlPAG is lacking. By contrast, a role for the caudal substantia nigra (cSN) in fear, stands apart from its canonical associations with movement and reward processes. Although there is new interest in examining a role for the nigra in fear modulation, this is essentially an uncharted area of discovery. The goals of this dissertation are three-fold. First, to propose a role for vlPAG activity in threat estimation, a function previously restricted to the upstream amygdala. Second, to scrutinize vlPAG neural activity using a novel multi-cue Pavlovian procedure and identify the long-anticipated, direct neural correlate for fear expression. Third, to present causal evidence supporting the cSN as a potential node in a circuit that most certainly extends beyond regions canonically associated with fear. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

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Abstrakt På morgonen 22 mars 2016 gjorde sig den jihadistiska terrorismen återigen påmind i Europa. Två snabbt på varandra följande dåd skakade om Bryssel – och Europa. 35 personer miste livet och dåden kom enligt medierapporteringen inte som en överraskning. Terrororganisationen Islamiska staten (IS), med det territoriella målet att återskapa det historiska Bagdadkalifatet, tog snabbt på sig dåden. Dessa dåd är bakgrunden till denna uppsats i vilken jag undersöker hur den svenska mediediskursen om terrorism konstrueras och hur diskursen korrelerar med hotsamhället, politics of fear och culture of fear. Denna formulering fungerar som uppsatsens primära frågeställning medan skillnaden mellan den amerikanska diskursen och den svenska är uppsatsens sekundära frågeställning. Uppsatsens syfte är att lämna ett bidrag till dels den svenska forskningen om terrorism, dels den svenska forskningen om hotsamhället, culture of fear och politics of fear – samt hur dessa fenomen konvergerar. Undersökningens metod är diskursanalys där Richard Jacksons (2005) diskursanalys av hur de amerikanska politikerna och ämbetsmännen konstruerade diskursen om ”the war on terrorism” fungerat som utgångspunkt. Empirin utgörs av 36 nyhetsartiklar från Aftonbladet (pappersupplaga), Dagens Nyheter (pappersupplaga) och Sveriges Television (webb). Empirin inhämtades från det datum respektive medium inledde sin rapportering, fram till dess att det uppstod en mättnad i materialet där mönster kunde urskiljas. Diskursen visar att terrorismen och dess hot har normaliserats och blivit en del av den europeiska vardagen. Denna konstruktion är tydligt influerad av en politics of fear- och culture of fear-retorik. Dåden beskrivs som väntade och terroristerna gestaltas inte lika barbariska som de görs i den amerikanska diskursen, även om terrordåden som handlingar beskrivs som avskyvärda. I större utsträckning än i den amerikanska diskursens tas sociala bakomliggande mekanismer upp. Diskursen visar tydligt att det finns en hotbild mot hela Europa och därmed mot Sverige. Definitionen av hotbilden mot Europa har demokratiska förtecken: demokratin, öppenheten och det fria livet är det som hotas. Den amerikanska diskursens definition av 11 septemberattackerna som en attack mot ”oskyldiga amerikaner” är liknande. Det råder en frånvaro av en motdiskurs, vilket beror på mediernas, politikernas och terrorexperternas symbiotiska förhållande. Den svenska diskursen beskriver attackerna som krigshandlingar på samma sätt som den amerikanska diskursen gör, men i den svenska diskursen är det inte lika självklart att svaret på attackerna är ett ”war on terrorism”.

Background: Humanity builds and writes its history. Overtime the need of feeling secure has been present originated from an emotion, a condition and reaction: the fear of threats or danger. The impact of human fear over the humanity behaviour leads for searching ways of reducing such fear. Consequently, security companies have a potential opportunity for fulfilling this human need reducing the phenomenon of fear. Some organisations and companies discovered that human fear can be used as tool for influencing the individual behaviour and for consumption purposes. Aim: Developing a research and discussing some of the issues that concerns today‟s societies and business organisations as well as the managerial consequences arising by exploring the global fear and necessity of security trends as a critical issue for the decades to come. Therefore, the purpose of this study explores the extent to which companies can use human fear that an individual perceives as a potential strategy within the security industry to increase and expand their market. Definitions: When companies use fear in advertising influence human behaviour known in marketing as fear appeal. In this research, mass media does not use fear as a conscious way to manipulate or persuade human behaviour. However, the usage of fear messages in mass media has an impact on human fear perception. Then, there is evidence of a positive relationship between marketing fear appeal and mass media spreading information of threats, violence and crime. Both create fear on humans‟ perception but marketing in a direct conscious way and mass media in an indirect unconscious way, what we have identified and called „unacquainted-indirect fear appeal‟. Results: The findings in this exploratory thesis show a functional relationship between the phenomenon of fear and the phenomenon of the need of security which are persistent variables overtime. Therefore, it is possible for security companies to take advantage of this trend and to develop a potential strategy to increase and expand their market while taking into account that fear appeal needs a very specific treatment and testing along this process due to the several results that can be achieved from such a strategy. The results can vary depending on the circumstances of the individual and the environment not always controllable by the companies within business in a constant changing world.

The present study aimed to investigate the fears of female and male children and adolescents between the ages of 8 and 18 from different socioeconomic levels. Additionally, the origins of children&rsquo / s and adolescents&rsquo / fears were examined. To reach the aims, the study was divided into two stages. In the first stage adaptation study of Fear Survey Schedule for Children-AM (Burnham, 1995) into Turkish was conducted. Two different samples were utilized in stage one. First sample was comprised of 355 participants (173 females and 182 males) with a mean age of 12.66 (SD=3.05). Second sample was comprised of 1315 participants (642 females and 673 males) with a mean age of 13.15 (SD=3.18). Second stage of the study was the main study. Second sample of the first stage including 1315 participants was utilized in stage two. Beside Fear Survey Schedule for Children, assessing the origins of children&rsquo / s and adolescents&rsquo / fears were utilized in the present study. Results of the study pointed that female children from low socioeconomic status at age 8 were the most fearful group among all children and adolescents. Also, for all fear factors female children and especially from low socioeconomic status reported higher level of fear than male preadolescents and adolescents. In general, it can be said that being female, from low socioeconomic status and young especially at age 8 is related to more intense fears. Among all children and adolescents, fears of children at age 8, 9 and 10 were significantly different than fears of preadolescents and adolescents at various ages, but they were not significantly different than each other. Fears of preadolescents at age 11, 12 and 13 were significantly different than preadolescents at least 2 years older than themselves. Overall most commonly endorsed fears were &ldquo / someone in my family dying&rdquo / , &ldquo / going to Hell&rdquo / , &ldquo / death of a closed person (grandparent, best friend etc.)&rdquo / , &ldquo / abuse&rdquo / , &ldquo / God&rdquo / , &ldquo / AIDS&rdquo / , &ldquo / someone in my family having an accident&rdquo / , &ldquo / my parents separating or getting divorced&rdquo / and &ldquo / terrorist attacks&rdquo / . Findings related to the origins of children&rsquo / s and adolescents&rsquo / fears indicated that 64.8% of all children learnt fear by modeling, 51.8% of all children learnt fear by negative information transmission and 35.8% all of children fear by experiences (conditioning). Negative information transmission intensified 45.7% of all children and adolescents, modeling intensified 49% of all children and adolescents and experience (conditioning) intensified 44.8% of all children and adolescents.

Modern accounts of the meaning of “fear of the LORD” in the Hebrew Bible have tended to distance this important concept from the emotion of fear, offering alternative understandings as worship, obedience, or wisdom. This essay examines phrases such as “fear of the LORD,” “fear of God,” and “God-fearer,” across four sets of texts in the Hebrew Bible: 1) narratives in Genesis and Exodus; 2) Deuteronomy and other Deuteronomistic literature; 3) wisdom literature; and 4) Psalms. I argue that fear of the LORD/God in the Hebrew Bible typically does connote an emotional fear response that has in view divine power over life and death. The links between such fear and worship, and obedience, and wisdom that are attested in numerous biblical texts are not evidence of synonymy but a recognition of the fundamental link between emotion, cognition, and action. Recent developments in the study of emotion illuminate their interrelationship and the ways in which fear of the LORD/God is also socially shaped and shaping.

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The present study used auditory fear conditioning to assess the impact of repeated binge-like episodes of alcohol exposure during adolescence on conditioned fear in adulthood. Male and female Long-Evans rats were subjected to adolescent intermittent ethanol (AIE) exposure by vapor inhalation between post-natal day 28 and 44. After aging into adulthood, rats then underwent fear conditioning by exposure to a series of tone-shock pairings. This was followed by cued-tone extinction training, and then testing of fear recovery. In male rats, AIE exposure enhanced conditioned freezing but did not alter the time-course of extinction of cued-tone freezing. During subsequent assessment of fear recovery, AIE exposed rats exhibited less freezing during contextual fear renewal, but greater freezing during extinction recall and spontaneous recovery. Compared to males, female rats exhibited significantly lower levels of freezing during fear conditioning, more rapid extinction of freezing behavior, and significantly lower levels of freezing during the tests of fear recovery. Unlike males that were all classified as high conditioners; female rats could be parsed into either a high or low conditioning group. However, irrespective of their level of conditioned freezing, both the high and low conditioning groups of female rats exhibited rapid extinction of conditioned freezing behavior and comparatively low levels of freezing in tests of fear recovery. Regardless of group classification, AIE had no effect on freezing behavior in female rats during acquisition, extinction, or fear recovery. Lastly, exposure of male rats to the mGlu5 positive allosteric modulator CDPPB prevented AIE-induced alterations in freezing. Taken together, these observations demonstrate sex-specific changes in conditioned fear behaviors that are reversible by pharmacological interventions that target mGlu5 receptor activation.