Comparative Automaticity of Fear

情感的外行概念常常强调情感反应的反射性。例如，一种侮辱可能很快引起愤怒，似乎没有经过深思熟虑或思考。这一观点最近得到了生物学、临床和社会心理学的支持。目前的研究挑战了这一观点，表明它可能只适用于有限的一组情绪。现有的证据表明，恐惧和其他情绪在质量和数量上都存在差异，恐惧是一种可以在没有意识处理或注意力的情况下触发的情绪。然而，这一假设是基于对使用多种方法的独立研究的比较。在同一实验的背景下，几乎不存在不同情绪之间的系统比较。六项研究将测试恐惧、悲伤、厌恶、快乐和兴奋之间的差异，使用情绪幻灯片和计算机定时。各种行为、认知、主观和生理测量都包括在分析中。从生物学的角度来看，人们能够尽可能快地对潜在的威胁做出反应，而不考虑他们之前的计划和有意识的想法，这是明智的。然而，在其他类型的情绪情况下，快速反应就不那么重要了，而在安全没有直接威胁的情况下，灵活、深思熟虑的反应往往更具适应性。因此，有人提出，生物学让人类对潜在的威胁做出了快速反应，但对其他类型的情绪情况却没有。只有仔细的对照研究才能为这一假设提供实证支持。该结果可能具有重要的理论意义，并可能为未来的治疗干预提供信息。

Lay conceptions of emotion often emphasize the reflexive nature of emotional reactions. An insult, for example, might quickly give rise to anger, seemingly with little deliberation or thought. This view has recently received support in biological, clinical, and social psychology. The current research challenges this view, suggesting that it may apply only for a limited set of emotions. The available evidence indicates both qualitative and quantitative differences between fear and other emotions, with fear being the one emotion that can be triggered in the absence of conscious processing or attention. However, this hypothesis is based on a comparison of separate studies using a diversity of methods. Systematic comparisons among different emotions are virtually nonexistent within the context of the same experiment. Six studies will test differences between fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and excitement using emotional slides and computerized timing. A variety of behavioral, cognitive, subjective, and physiological measures are included in the analysis. From a biological perspective, it is sensible that people are capable of responding to potential threats as rapidly as possible, irrespective of their prior plans and conscious thoughts. However, rapid responding is less important in other types of emotional situations, and flexible, thoughtful responding tends to be more adaptive when there are no immediate threats to safety. It is therefore proposed that biology has prepared humans to respond rapidly to potential threats, but not to other types of emotional situations. Only careful, controlled studies can provide empirical support for this hypothesis. The results are likely to have major theoretical significance, and may inform future therapeutic interventions.