Qualitative Analysis of Emotions: Fear and Thrill

Ralf C. Buckley

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01187

Abstract

People can speak, and this provides opportunities to analyze human emotions using perceived experiences communicated via language, as well as through measurement and imaging techniques that are also applicable to other higher animal species. Here I compare four qualitative methodological approaches to test if, and how, thrill depends on fear. I use eight high-risk, high-skill, real-life outdoor adventure recreation activities to provide the test circumstances. I present data from: >4000 person-days of participant observation; interviews with 40 expert practitioners; retrospective autoethnography of 50 critical incidents over 4 decades; and experimental autoethnography of 60 events. Results from different methods are congruent, but different approaches yield different insights. The principal findings are as follows. Individuals differ in their fear and thrill responses. The same individual may have different responses on different occasions. Fear boosts performance, but panic causes paralysis. Anxiety or apprehension prior to a risky action or event differs from fear experienced during the event itself. The intensity of pre-event fear generally increases with the immediacy of risk to life, and time to contemplate that risk. Fear must be faced, assessed and overcome in order to act. Thrill can occur either during or after a high-risk event. Thrill can occur without fear, and fear without thrill. Below a lower threshold of perceived risk, thrill can occur without fear. Between a lower and upper threshold, thrill increases with fear. Beyond the upper threshold, thrill vanishes but fear remains. This there is a sawtooth relation between fear and thrill. Perceived danger generates intense focus and awareness. Fear and other emotions can disappear during intense concentration and focus. Under high risk, the usual emotional sequence is fear before the action or event, then focus during the action or event, then thrill, relief, or triumph afterward. The emotionless state persists only during the most intense concentration. For events long enough to differentiate time within the events, fear and thrill can arise and fade in different fine-scale sequences.

Highlights

Neurological and endocrine study of human emotions has advanced greatly in recent years (LeDoux, 2012a,b; Lindquist et al, 2012; Adolphs, 2013)
Participant observations were compiled from >4,000 persondays activities over a period of a decade. These included: 273 days, >300 separate individuals, and >3000 participant-days of moderate to high-risk white-water rafting and kayaking, much of it in remote and unknown areas; 83 days, >90 individuals, and >440 participant-days of wildlife watching in potentially dangerous circumstances, such as watching bear, rhino, elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, or tiger at close or very close range, on foot or in open vehicles, by night as well as day; 72 days, 46 individuals, and 365 participant-days of high-risk surfing on shallow tropical reef breaks; and 70 days, 55 individuals, and 350 participantdays of helicopter snowboarding, including steep, densely treecovered, and heavily cliffed terrain with high avalanche risk at altitudes to 5000 m
Highest fear was shown by first-time participants during unfamiliar high-risk activities

Summary

Introduction

Neurological and endocrine study of human emotions has advanced greatly in recent years (LeDoux, 2012a,b; Lindquist et al, 2012; Adolphs, 2013). Some aspects of emotional psychology, cannot yet be examined using laboratory based approaches. These aspects can only be studied through the qualitative analysis of experiences communicated via language. The value of data obtained via autobiographical memory has recently received explicit recognition (Harrison and Loui, 2014; Boccignone and Cordeschi, 2015; Buckley, 2015a; Gardner et al, 2015; Morin et al, 2015). There have been far fewer field tests or methodological advances using these approaches, than for approaches based on technological observations and measurements

Methods

Results

Conclusion