Fear is a basic emotion that we humans feel in times of stress or when a threat is present or believed. As humans grow and develop they also carry along some childhood memories that can stick with us for a long time. As a little kid, you are exposed to new experiences, some could inspire you and some could, later on, be the thing you fear the most.

Phobias are claimed to be caused by past childhood experiences that brought great distress and discomfort, such as a frightening event that will never leave you. There might be ways to treat and “cure” phobias by confronting them gradually in the form of self-exposure therapy. There are also many unexplained phobias such as phobophobia which is the fear of… something. Your brain cannot remember everything so it takes tiny chunks of information that it sees important, these will later form your memory. The part of the brain responsible for all this is the hippocampus. You can hardly remember anything from when you were a baby because that hippocampus hasn’t fully been developed in order for you to remember important things.

Phobias cover everything; the fear of numbers (arithmophobia), the fear of being watched by a duck (Anatidaephobia), and the fear of long words (Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia). People who are fearless don’t focus on what scares them, but rather why it scares them. These people are mainly seen as extroverted people who aren’t afraid to put themselves in the spotlight.