This literature suggests that a relatively high percentage of rape victims feel paralyzed and unable to act despite no loss of consciousness during the assault ( Burgess & Holmstrom, 1976 Heidt, Marx, & Forsyth, 2005). One exception is the PTSD/rape literature wherein several studies have described a rape-induced paralysis that appears to share many of the features of tonic immobility ( Galliano, Noble, Travis & Puechl, 1993 Mezey & Taylor, 1998 Scaer, 2001 Suarez & Gallup, 1977). For example, tonic immobility may be useful when additional attacks are provoked by movement or when immobility may increase the chance of escaping, such as when a predator believes its prey to be dead and releases it.ĭespite evidence suggesting that tonic immobility may be a key facet of alarm reactions, freezing has received relatively little scientific attention in humans. However, tonic immobility may be the best option when the animal perceives little immediate chance of escaping or winning a fight ( Arduino & Gould, 1984 Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005). Freezing in the context of an attack seems counterintuitive. Ethologists have documented non-volitional freeze responses in several animal species ( Arduino & Gould, 1984 Kalin, Shelton, Rickman, & Davidson, 1998). In the context of predatory attack, some animals will freeze or “play dead.” This response, often referred to as tonic immobility ( Gallup, 1977), includes motor and vocal inhibition with an abrupt initiation and cessation. Similar to the flight/fight response, a freeze response is believed to have adaptive value.
For example, when fleeing or aggressive responses are likely to be ineffective, a freeze response may take place. Specifically, freezing - or tonic immobility - may overwhelm other competing action tendencies. Part of Barlow’s (2002) description of an adaptive alarm model suggests that a freeze response may occur in some threatening situations.
The more contemporary notion of a true or false alarm still contains the two primary features of Cannon’s original expression, though the ordering of effects is probably best reversed flight is the overwhelming action tendency subsequent to an alarm whereas relatively fewer instances of fight responses result from threat ( Lang, 1994). In the context of anxiety research, the alarm or fear response described by Barlow (2002) reflects an interaction between learning and innate, biological systems designed to help animals adapt to threat. This term has not only been influential in later conceptual and empirical work on anxiety and its disorders, but the phrase also has become relatively well-known in popular culture. The phrase “fight or flight” was coined by Cannon (1927, 1929) in the 1920s to describe key behaviors that occur in the context of perceived threat.