According to the evolutionary perspective, fear originates in defensive behavior mechanisms which assists an organism's readiness to cope with different types of survival threats (Blanchard and Blanchard, 1988, Marks and Toben̂a, 1991 and Russell, 1979). Fear motivates organisms to escape and avoid sources of danger and threat with quick activation of defensive behaviors, likely to have been learned by its ancestors, who were naturally selected for their ability to detect and respond to threatening phenomena (Marks, 1987, p. 288). An organism that can modify their behavior to benefit from experience are more likely to survive and pass on their genes to their offspring. .
Evolution has led to some objects and situations becoming innate sources of fear and has shaped some relatively hardwired and instinctive escape responses; however, all mammals are also capable of learning to fear initially neutral objects and situations that pose a threat or danger (Mineka and Öhman, 2002, p. 927). As products of natural selection, fear and fear learning have been moulded and constrained by evolutionary contingencies. For example, we are more likely to acquire a fear for objects and situations that are potentially harmful to our survival such as dangerous predators, heights and confined places, than for contemporary man-made objects such as firearms and cars even though the latter may be more likely to be associated with danger in our everyday lives (Hofmann, 2008, p. 201). One highly influential evolutionary theory on fear conditioning was Seligman's (1971) preparedness theory of phobias. The theory states that humans are evolutionarily prepared to acquire a fear for specific objects or situations that threaten the survival of humankind (Hofmann, 2008, p. 201). Many aspects of fears and phobias is also known as the selective association which denote preferential tendencies for prepared or fear-relevant stimuli than unprepared or fear-irrelevant stimuli (Mineka and Öhman, 2002, p.
