young creature has been born and reared in that environment and has been cared for by others who have adopted those customs, is testimony that the environment and the customs together are a combination capable of sustaining life. In wild creatures, therefore, and in almost all human communities also, it is no surprise that there is strong bias to preserve a conservative way of life.
The evolution of personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis, it is therefore suggested, has provided higher vertebrates with an additional set of regulatory systems that contribute to survival. Evolved later than the systems that maintain morphological, physiological and ecological homeostasis, this additional set of systems acts as an outer ring. As a consequence of their evolution many hazards are avoided that would jeopardise safety by stressing the capability of the inner ring of regulatory systems evolved earlier. Seen in this light the evolution of personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis appears as a way of doubling safety measures.
In concluding this section, special emphasis is given to the hypothesis that the outer ring systems that maintain personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis are as ‘bred in the bone’ namely are as environmentally stable as are the inner ring systems that in an immediate way maintain morphological, physiological and ecological homeostasis. Thus, threats to outer ring steady states are responded to just as promptly and just as instinctively as are threats to inner‐ring steady states. Moreover, just as an animal learns cues that forewarn it of threats to morphological, physiological and ecological homeostasis, so does it also learn cues that forewarn it of threats to personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis. If this hypothesis is correct it would be expected that any disturbance, actual or potential to personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis will engender no less stress and no less anxiety than do disturbances, actual or potential to those categories of homeostasis that, because more obviously contributing to survival, are better known and understood.14
A Distinction Between Fear (or Alarm) and Anxiety15
It is stated in the introduction to this essay that it is useful to distinguish between fear and anxiety. On the one hand, it is posited that we try all times to withdraw or escape from a situation or object that we find alarming, and on the other, we try to go towards and to remain with some person or in some place that makes us feel secure. The first type of behaviour is commonly accompanied by a sense of fright or alarm. What is experienced when the second type of behaviour is implicated, it is suggested, is best termed ‘anxiety’.
Applied in the context of the theory of homeostasis now proposed this means that, whenever a person is focussing attention on the source of some homeostatic disturbance (or the threat of it) and on how to avoid it, what he feels is best termed ‘fear’ or ‘alarm’; and that, whenever a person is focussing attention on restoring homeostasis and the difficulties of doing so, what he feels is best termed ‘anxiety’. Whilst it is evident that both types of feeling can be present together, not infrequently one or the other predominates. The belief that in the two situations there is a real distinction in feeling is supported by the fact that the terms proposed have roots the meaning of which shade in two quite different directions. Thus, the English word ‘fear’ has cousins in old high German and old Norse with meanings that indicate ‘ambush’ and ‘plague’; whilst alarm derives from sixteenth century Italian meaning ‘to arms’ and implies, therefore, ‘surprise attack’ (Onions, 1966).16 By contrast, ‘anxiety’ has cousins in Greek and Latin in meanings that center on grief and ‘sadness’; and is related to the German ‘Angst’ that, in addition to signifying dread, could in the seventeenth century also mean ‘longing’. In addition ‘anxiety’ has as further cousins both ‘anguish’ and ‘anger’ (Lewis, 1967).17 Insofar as separation from an attachment figure is accompanied by anxiety and often also by anger, and loss by anguish and despair, the usage is in keeping with its historical roots. It is also in keeping with Freud’s belief that ‘missing someone who is loved and longed for…’ is ‘…the key to an understanding of anxiety.’18
Inter‐relations of Fear (or Alarm) and Anxiety
Although reasonably distinct in tone, those feelings termed respectively ‘alarm’ and ‘anxiety’ are nonetheless linked with one another in a very intimate way. A number of studies show clearly that the way children and animals behave toward mildly frightening objects varies greatly in differing social conditions.
It seems likely that comparable experiments would show similar results in adult humans (though I have not read of any). Walking through a wood at night with and without companions would be an appropriate type of test.
There is, of course, good reasons why in a group living species of animal should be more wary when isolated than when with its conspecifics. For in such species, when a predator threatens, the safety of every animal turns on the defensive efforts, either of all of them, or of the adult males together.
It is no accident that being together with ‘kith and kin’ buys relief from fear and anxiety, and engenders a feeling of security. Here again the etymology of words habitually in use, namely ‘security’ and ‘safety’, is revealing and stem from the Latin ‘salvus’ (Onions, 1966).19
The word ‘safe’ refers to absence of injury. As such it is appropriately used to describe a situation in which injury is highly improbable. The word ‘security’, on the other hand, has a very different origin. It incorporates the Latin se and cura and refers to a feeling of not being burdened by cares or grief. As such it is appropriately used to denote a feeling of being unthreatened.20
Now it is already evident that to feel fear or anxiety is only indirectly correlated with actual danger. In the same way, to feel secure is only indirectly correlated with actual safety. Thus members of a family may feel relatively secure when they are together, even if danger threatens; whilst conversely, each one alone might feel anxious even in the absence of any danger. Loneliness, like ‘conscience doth make cowards of us all’.21
It is now possible, perhaps, to see some of the pitfalls that beset anyone in trying to formulate theories concerning fear (or alarm), anxiety, and feelings of security and of the situations that give rise to such feelings. First, there is a problem of distinguishing between avoiding a disturbance to homeostasis, on the one hand, and restoring homeostasis after it has been disturbed, on the other. Secondly, there is the fact that fear (or alarm) is frequently elicited, not by actual danger but by indicators only loosely correlated with actual danger. Thirdly, there is the fact that two of the most basic variables that determine whether fear or anxiety is experienced, and if so how intensely, namely strangeness versus familiarity and isolation versus companionship, tend to be highly idiosyncratic for each individual. So long as threats are public and common to all – an earthquake, a bellowing bull, a rifle pointed at someone – it is easy to classify them as ‘real’, evident, and verifiable. When, by contrast, there is threat or disturbance to someone’s personal environment and to his stability within it – isolation, the possibility of home being demolished, uncertainty whether parents will remain together – the fear and anxiety generated are not to be regarded as ‘unreal’ or unverifiable or at the least exaggerated. What naturally engender fear or anxiety, does not always fall within what is conventionally regarded as ‘reasonable’.
In the usage proposed,
