Avash News: John Broadus Watson, an American psychologist who popularized the scientific theory of behaviorism, believed that human infants have only a few inherent fears. There are two main fears: one is loud noises and the other is loss of support in life. Watson believed that all other fears are learned through conditioning — just like the fear of snapback and the additional psychological load it places on the body of Iranian society, which has affected everything else.
In fact, fear of animals or social situations is more common than fear of thousands of objects, including power outlets, one’s own blood, or — now — the psychological effects of snapback. Meanwhile, recent triggers are more likely to be accompanied by dangerous consequences. Should it be concluded that readiness for fear is in our genes? If a positive answer to this question is understood to mean that all of us are born with fears of lions, tigers, snakes, etc., the answer is no. Because if it were true, everyone should fear snakes. At least, people’s fears partly lie in their personal experiences, which cause one person to fear lions, another to fear snakes, and a third to fear neither. But why only fear lions, snakes, and similar things?
Some conditioning tests have provided answers to this question. Consequently, we fear new sanctions, and this pattern holds true for us as well. In fact, some findings show that what really happens is that preexisting fears become sensitized to certain triggers under stress and threat, rather than an acceleration of fear conditioning. Therefore, fear is partly defined by biological processes. However, fear must have two other dimensions to be meaningful for a behaviorist. One: the conditions leading to fear must be made exactly obvious — defining the things that cause the defensive behavioral system to become operational — and two: an elaboration of the behaviors that are caused by fear.
Darwinian natural selection has defined the fears we are born with, the fears that we can learn, and the responses to these fears, which can be decoded in related genes. Lab mice show fear on their first exposure to a cat. While these kinds of lab tests cannot be conducted on humans, the fact that humans more commonly fear certain triggers than others shows that we have similar readiness. This is not to say that fear of environmental triggers is never learned, but the types of triggers we need to learn to fear are restricted. If fear serves to protect us from upcoming threats, we would not have the opportunity to learn which behavior is effective and which is not. Creatures would be doomed to death if they had to learn through trial and error in these situations. This is because creatures have been preprogrammed with special defensive behaviors that become activated as soon as they are exposed to fear. Mice stand still as soon as they are exposed to a cat because cats are drawn to moving targets. This explains fear among mice. So, I think that I am more likely to solve a complicated math problem when the reward is a cold, delicious drink than to avoid an armed person.
Over the past couple of weeks, the consequences, implications, and, in particular, the probable impacts of the snapback mechanism have been widely discussed in the media and public opinion. Some newspapers, groups, gatherings, political parties, and elites have been instilling in society that if such a thing happens, the lives of most people will become unstable and unsettled, all accounts will be blocked, ships will be seized, citizens will face shortages of commodities and essential goods in the market, and Iran’s economy will be dismantled. And no matter how it was explained to the public with reasons and evidence, no one listened, and a space filled with self-made stress and fear built up within society. However, if it is analyzed and explored with precision, we will encounter an obvious paradox and a clear contradiction.
Snapback mechanism against Iran was activated by three European countries – the UK, Germany and France- and Security Council’s sanctions that had been lifted as a result of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 were returned. Many experts say that these sanctions will not affect Iran’s economy.
