Fearless or Fearful: How Do We Define Courage?
“Tell me, if you can, what is courage?”
If I asked you to define “courage,” what would you say? Would you focus on the daring heroism displayed by a firefighter running into a burning building? Would you look to the protester standing up for the courage of their convictions? Would you think of the speaker standing in front of thousands, despite the racing of their heart? Or would you be completely stumped?
As it turns out, defining “courage” is a daunting task, and has been for centuries. In 380 BC, Plato spent an entire dialogue debating the question of what it means to be courageous. The dialogue ends without a clear answer. And, in the almost 2500 years since, we still don’t have a clear answer. The dialogue rages on. At a glance, it would appear that there are two big “camps”' in the big courage debate: those who think that courage is defined by the absence of fear, and those who think that courage is defined by the presence of fear.
Is courage “simply the absence of fear”?
In his book “Learning Theory and Behavior,” Orval Mowrer suggested that “courage is simply the absence of fear in situations where it might well be expected to be present.” His definition puts an emphasis on the presence of danger and an unexpected lack of fear. It represents the more prototypical kind of courage, the kind that might be demonstrated by the soldier on the front line or the firefighter running into a burning building. This type of courage is perhaps more obvious. It’s the kind of act we all think of when we think of bravery, or valor. But, it’s ultimately less attainable — it is only demonstrated by extraordinary individuals in extraordinary circumstances.
This “fearless” definition of courage dominated research on courage for decades. Some of the earliest psychological studies of courage came forth in wartime and focused on these extraordinary individuals, like the Air Force fliers studied by L. Shaffer in 1947 and the bomb disposal technicians studied by D. Cox and others in 1983. These individuals represent a very small part of the human population – despite a huge threat, they were capable of performing their very dangerous jobs. Though they might have experienced fear in these jobs, the fact that they could successfully complete their tasks (without freaking out) suggests that they had a much lower level of fear than the average person might have. Indeed, these studies showed that these individuals demonstrated less fear in response to these threatening situations. This low fear in the presence of danger makes these individuals the embodiment of “fearless” courage.
My colleague and research idol Cindy Pury would refer to this “fearless” courage as “general courage.” This is the type of courage that happens when a person “acts courageously compared to how people in general would be expected to act in that situation; the risks involved would be present for anyone.” In other words, these are actions that would be brave for anyone, because they involve some great amount of risk or danger. Acts of general courage are performed with less fear, greater physical difficulty, and greater confidence. We would likely see these acts, and the people who perform them, as gallant or heroic.
However, there is a big problem with “fearless” or “general” courage: most of us can’t have it. By our very human nature, most of us have fear when it comes to dangerous or even life-threatening situations. And we should! Biologically speaking, we need fear. Fear prepares our bodies to either fight or flee a dangerous situation. It widens our eyes, increases our heart rate and our breathing, and sends blood to our limbs to help us move so that we can get through a dangerous situation alive.
So, if we all have fear, can we have courage? Can we embody that virtue? In short, yes, of course we can.
Or is courage “the ability to act despite the feeling of anxiety or fear”?
In 1984, Jack Rachman put out a totally different approach to courage. He described courage as “the ability to act despite the feeling of anxiety or fear.” This definition focuses on the experience of fear, regardless of the situation. This definition is not limited to the most dauntless among us — it could be demonstrated by anyone. Therefore, it’s not surprising that psychological research in the last few decades has focused more on this maybe-more-common kind of courage. For example, the spider-phobic individuals attempting to approach a spider (studied by Peter Norton & Brandon Weiss in 2009) or the students facing their academic fears in the classroom (studied by AJ Martin in 2011) were all believed to have courage. Though these situations are not objectively dangerous, they can create a large amount of fear. So, if people can engage in those situations, despite feeling fear, they are exhibiting “fearful” courage.
Cindy would call this “personal courage,” or the kind of courage that is demonstrated in “actions which are only courageous given the context of the actor’s personal limitations.” In other words, acts of “personal courage” are brave because they are hard for that individual. If I am not scared of flying and I jump on a flight, that is not courageous. But if my husband, who is a very nervous flier, gets on a plane, he is definitely courageous.
In that way, any of us could demonstrate courage by simply doing things even when (and maybe especially when) we feel afraid. We can embody courage simply by doing the things that make us afraid, that feel really difficult for us. We can become courageous by facing those things that bring us great challenge and persisting anyway. In that way, all of us have access to the virtue of courage. I don’t know about you, but I like that idea.
It might be both.
So, which is it? Do people tend to see courage as more fearless or more fearful? Is courage more of a general concept, or a personal one? As it turns out, it might be both. In a study I did at Northwestern University in 2015, I asked people to read a series of short stories about different characters performing different actions. For example, they read the story of Charles, a man who jumped onto an active railway to save someone who had fallen, and the story of Amanda, a woman who fled the room because she saw a spider. We asked people to rate a few different things about each story: how much fear the person had, how dangerous the situation was, how much the person approached the situation, and how courageous the person was.
We thought we might find two groups: people who rated courage high when fear was rated low, and people who rated courage high when fear was rated high. Instead, we found that most people rated the stories in similar ways. In general, people rated courage high when approach was high. In other words, to be courageous, the person had to actually do something. They also rated courage high when danger was high, so people perceive a person who does something more dangerous as more courageous. Fear, on the other hand, was not consistent. People rated courage high in stories where fear was high and when fear was low. Therefore, it seems like courage might be present in both “fearless” and “fearful” forms.
It might be, then, that the best definitions of courage have a little bit of both. For instance, Earl Shelp defined courage as “the disposition to voluntarily act, perhaps fearfully, in a dangerous circumstance.” And Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, the pioneers of positive psychology, suggest that, for an action to be courageous, an actor must be willing to take risks and overcome his fear. These definitions take both the real danger of “fearless” definitions and the presence of fear in the “fearful” definitions to create a cohesive whole. So maybe, courage means feeling fear in the face of some risk, but choosing to move forward anyway. It means acknowledging that something is difficult, and you might fail, and choosing to try.
We can all be courageous. If we are willing to take risks and face our own fears, we can embody this great virtue.
So today, try to live courageously, whatever that means to you.