Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Larry’s family illustrates a finding that can emerge only from long-term studies of divorce—the fact that in high-conflict marriages, the fighting rarely stops with the divorce. On the contrary, unless one adult disappears from the scene, it continues and even escalates. In my experience with high-conflict marriages, the divorce is a way station rather than a termination point for serious conflict. Whether fought out in the courts or among themselves (and most anger is not litigated), the fury of one or both parents continues. This was the experience for both children in Larry’s family and in a great many others. Although the parents no longer live together, their psychological relationship rages on for many years until the mothers gradually find their independence and break free of their husbands’ hold on them. Children who live in an atmosphere of ongoing accusations and counteraccusations feel little relief with divorce. It’s not until adulthood, as Larry’s story will show, that they come to understand the dynamics and divorce themselves from the chaos. But why, when he was living at home, did the boy behave so badly? Why did he buy into his father’s seduction at the cost of losing his mother? Understanding Larry begins with understanding what it’s like for a seven-year-old boy when his parents’ marriage breaks up. At seven, children who have been raised in an intact family rely on having both of their parents around. The divorce terrified Larry and his sister. With irrefutable logic they figured that if one parent could leave the other, both parents could surely leave them. They were preoccupied with the fear of being abandoned. And since it was their understanding that daddies come with families, they feared that their own daddy would soon replace them with “another mommy, another dog, another little boy or little girl.” That was a prospect that broke their hearts. This fear is the key to understanding the initial changes in Larry’s behavior. Overnight Larry became a replica of the delinquent aspects of his father. He took on his father’s brutish role with his mother, and by donning articles of his father’s clothing as magical talismans, he set about representing his father in the family. As he said later, “I became my alcoholic father.”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  reduce his opponents to silence. When Benito Mussolini was challenged, had made others willing to he would roll his eyes, showing the whites in a way that frightened people. believe, that she was the mouthpiece of God. • On President Kusnasosro Sukarno of Indonesia had a gaze that seemed as if it Friday, April 29th, 1429, could have read thoughts. Roosevelt could dilate his pupils at will, making the news spread in Orléans his stare both hypnotizing and intimidating. The eyes of the Charismatic that a force, led by the never show fear or nerves. Pucelle of Domrémy, was on its way to the relief of All of these skills are acquirable. Napoleon spent hours in front of a the city, a piece of news mirror, modeling his gaze on that of the great contemporary actor Talma. which, as the chronicler The key is self-control. The look does not necessarily have to be aggressive; remarks, comforted them greatly. it can also show contentment. Remember: your eyes can emanate charisma, — V I T A SACKVILLE-WEST, but they can also give you away as a faker. Do not leave such an important SAINT JOAN OF ARC attribute to chance. Practice the effect you desire. Genuine charisma thus means the ability to internally generate and externally express extreme excitement, an ability which makes one the object of intense attention and unre-flective imitation by others. — L I A H GREENFIELD Charismatic Types—Historical Examples The miraculous prophet. In the year 1425, Joan of Arc, a peasant girl from the French village of Domrémy, had her first vision: "I was in my thirteenth year when God sent a voice to guide me." The voice was that of Saint Michael and he came with a message from God: Joan had been chosen to rid France of the English invaders who now ruled most of the country, and of the resulting chaos and war. She was also to restore the French crown to the prince—the Dauphin, later Charles VII—who was its rightful heir. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret also spoke to Joan. Her visions were extraordinarily vivid: she saw Saint Michael, touched him, smelled him. The Charismatic • 103 At first Joan told no one what she had seen; for all anyone knew, she Amongst the surplus was a quiet farm girl. But the visions became even more intense, and so in population living on the margin of society [ in the 1429 she left Domrémy, determined to realize the mission for which God Middle Ages] there was had chosen her. Her goal was to meet Charles in the town of Chinon, always a strong tendency to where he had established his court in exile. The obstacles were enor- take as leader a layman, or mous: Chinon was far, the journey was dangerous, and Charles, even if she maybe an apostate friar or monk, who imposed

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Yeah, that guy. Oh shit, what should I do? Do you think he’s here for me?” Reese has been holding Katrina’s arm lightly, and now Katrina steps back suddenly. She regards Reese with a strange, alarmed expression, peering hard, as though at some object disobeying the laws of reality, flickering in and out of this dimension. Then Katrina turns to the cowboy. He meets her gaze, nods, and smiles amiably. A moment later his eyes flick over to Reese, and his face goes hard. Alarm, then fury, trembles in the briefest of moments through the tiny muscles of his face, before the Empress lays her hand on his arm and leans in for a peck on the cheek, at which he composes himself. “No, he’s not here for you. That’s Diana’s husband,” Katrina says quietly. Diana, right, that’s her name. I guess she has a cowboy after all, Reese thinks inanely. Then the window in which inanity remains a possibility shuts closed—a surge of adrenaline hits, carrying with it a squall of panic. Reese tenses her body, in full fight-or-flight mode— the faces around her blend, break into shapes, and dial back into ultra-sharpened focus. Her evolutionary response has not evolved to meet the moment. Eons of lizard-brain instinct tell her to flee wildly —the exact wrong thing to do. She requires grace or poise or wit. Instead, her body pours on the sweat, her heart rate ascends into the triple digits. In slow time, the cowboy forces his face into a smile for his wife and pushes open the door for her. He turns and catches Reese with a hard questioning look. Then Kathy is behind him, offering up pleasantries, which he gathers himself to return—and then three women in workout gear walk in, blocking Reese’s view, and her cowboy is gone. “He cheated on Diana with a trans woman a year or two ago,” Katrina says quietly, from beside Reese. “Was it you?” “No! No, that wasn’t me,” Reese says, trying for insistence, but the panic makes her voice waver, as though she isn’t sure. She tries to remember if she knew which girl it was. As though if she could name the girl to blame it on, she’d be absolved. “Diana went to college with me,” Katrina says, fidgeting with her purse. “She was my roommate’s younger sister. I’ve known her for a long time. I know most of her family. When he was diagnosed after that affair, it threw everything into turmoil. I thought things were okay now.” “That wasn’t me,” Reese repeats. Katrina continues to hold Reese with that strange look. “Maybe it’s not your fault. Maybe you couldn’t have known. What did he tell you about his wife?” Reese exhales to calm herself, consciously, she forces her shoulders to release down. “I don’t know. He told me some. You know how men are.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  She still holds a handful of sand, seeming to have forgotten about it, squinting one eye at Ames in the sunlight. “But elephants can’t stop being elephants. Or more to the point, women can’t just stop being women. I can’t stop being a woman just because it’s hard—not that I would even if I could.” “T know. That’s my problem.” “So do you think about re-transitioning?” “Would you put a traumatized juvenile elephant back where the poachers killed her mother?” She tosses the sand aside, but little dry brown burrs in the sand cling to the edge of her sleeve. “Shouldn’t the correct answer be that those elephants eventually grow up and just chill the fuck out?” “Yeah. At some point juvenile elephants become adult elephants. Then, eventually, they have their own kids, and hopefully, they treat those kids right and they get to reconstruct the matriarchy.” Something clicks for Katrina, she pulls her hands close to her, defensively. “Is this your way of talking about the pregnancy?” He sighs. “Yeah. It’s hard for me. I’ve got some fear going on. I talk obliquely when I’m scared.” Charcoal smoke passes on the breeze. Two men debate in Spanish the optimal way to set a small hibachi grill into the rocks of the breakwater, while their families play soccer on the grass alongside the boulders. Down on the beach ripples lap against the shore and a couple introduces their child to the water’s edge. The woman wears a red one-piece. She leans over her daughter, pointing out little freshwater shells and seaweed. The child wears a white hat to shield her from the sun. A man stands protectively off to the side, poised to leap into action, should anything approach from either lake or shore to threaten his wife or child. The scene could be B-roll footage for wholesome family time. It’s too much for Ames, like the world has chosen to mock him at that moment. After moments of silence Katrina begins, apropos of little. “My friend Diana and I were talking. You met her last year at the NYF Advertising dinner. She’s baby-crazy and trying to make some choices. We were saying that it seems like all of our mutual friends who got pregnant act like they got sure of everything in pregnancy. That nature just makes that surety happen. You don’t actually have to decide things. Instead you get some kind of biological mama bear instinct that shows you the way. I don’t feel that way. My mama instinct hasn’t kicked in. I don’t know what to do.” She laughs, not happily; she stares too intently at the flower gardens in the middle distance, blinking back emotion. He wets his lips, pauses, and says, “What are you thinking about doing?”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “It’s about gaining your trust and your respect, so you’ll let me exert my will over you. I will gain a great deal of pleasure, joy even, in your submission. The more you submit, the greater my joy—it’s a very simple equation.” “Okay, and what do I get out of this?” He shrugs and looks almost apologetic. “Me,” he says simply. Oh my. Christian rakes his hand through his hair as he gazes at me. “You’re not giving anything away, Anastasia.” He sounds a little exasperated. “Let’s go back downstairs where I can concentrate better. It’s very distracting having you in here.” He holds his hand out to me, and now I’m hesitant to take it. Kate had said he was dangerous; she was so right. How did she know? He’s dangerous to my health, because I know I’m going to say yes. And part of me doesn’t want to. Part of me wants to run screaming from this room and all it represents. I am so out of my depth here. “I’m not going to hurt you, Anastasia.” I know he speaks the truth. I take his hand, and he leads me out the door. “If you do this, let me show you.” Rather than going back downstairs, he turns right out of the playroom, as he calls it, and down a corridor. We pass several doors until we reach the one at the end. Beyond it is a bedroom with a large double bed, all in white—everything: furniture, walls, bedding. It’s sterile and cold but with the most glorious view of Seattle through the glass wall. “This will be your room. You can decorate it how you like, have whatever you like in here.” “My room? You’re expecting me to move in?” I can’t hide the horror in my voice. “Not full-time. Just, say, Friday evening through Sunday. We have to talk about all that. Negotiate. If you want to do this,” he adds, his voice hesitant. “I’ll sleep here?” “Yes.” “Not with you.” “No. I told you, I don’t sleep with anyone, except you when you’re stupefied with drink.” His tone is reprimanding. My mouth presses in a hard line. This is what I cannot reconcile. Kind, caring Christian, who rescues me from inebriation and holds me gently while I’m throwing up into the azaleas, and the monster who possesses whips and chains in a special room. “Where do you sleep?” “My room is downstairs. Come, you must be hungry.” “Weirdly, I seem to have lost my appetite,” I murmur petulantly. “You must eat, Anastasia,” he scolds and, taking my hand, leads me back downstairs. Back in the impossibly big room, I am filled with deep trepidation. I am on the edge of a precipice, and I have to decide whether to jump.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Holy crap. I pull up my jeans. My heart is thumping. Coming to get me? Oh no. I’m going to be sick… No, I’m fine. Hang on. He’s just messing with my head. I didn’t tell him where I was. He can’t find me here. Besides, it will take him hours to get here from Seattle, and we’ll be long gone by then. I wash my hands and check my face in the mirror. I look flushed and slightly unfocused. Hmm…tequila. I wait at the bar for what feels like an eternity for the pitcher of beer and eventually return to the table. “You’ve been gone so long,” Kate scolds me. “Where were you?” “I was in line for the restroom.” José and Levi are having some heated debate about our local baseball team. José pauses in his tirade to pour us all beers, and I take a long sip before saying, “Kate, I think I’d better step outside and get some fresh air.” “Ana, you are such a lightweight.” “I’ll be five minutes.” I make my way through the crowd again. I’m beginning to feel nauseated, my head is spinning uncomfortably, and I’m a little unsteady on my feet. More unsteady than usual. Drinking in the cool evening air in the parking lot makes me realize how drunk I am. My vision has been affected, and I’m really seeing double of everything like in old reruns of Tom and Jerry cartoons. I think I’m going to be sick. Why did I let myself get this messed up? “Ana.” José has joined me. “You okay?” “I think I’ve just had a bit too much to drink.” I smile weakly at him. “Me, too,” he says, his dark eyes regarding me intently. “Do you need a hand?” He steps closer, putting his arm around me. “José, I’m okay. I’ve got this.” I rather feebly try to push him away. “Ana, please,” he whispers, and now he’s holding me in his arms, pulling me close. “José, what are you doing?” “You know I like you Ana, please.” He has one hand at the small of my back holding me against him, the other at my chin tipping back my head. Holy fuck…he’s going to kiss me. “No, José, stop—no!” I push him, but he’s a wall of hard muscle, and I cannot shift him. His hand has slipped into my hair, and he’s holding my head in place. “Please, Ana, cariño,” he whispers against my lips. His breath is soft and smells too sweet—of margarita and beer. He gently trails kisses along my jaw up to the side of my mouth. I feel panicky, drunk, and out of control. The feeling is suffocating. “José, no,” I plead. I don’t want this. You are my friend, and I think I’m going to throw up. “I think the lady said no,” a voice in the dark says quietly. Holy shit! Christian Grey. He’s here. How? José releases me. “Grey,” he says tersely.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Oh god no, not the police. The question sobered her. “No.” she shook her head and pleaded, “No police.” Her voice came out heavy and thick. “Are you sure? What do you need?” He hesitated between two cars. “Hospital.” She grunted and pushed herself up, feeling around for her missing heel with her right hand, the other hand over her nose. Tentatively, the man approached her again. He wore a windbreaker; he was older, silver hair and iron-gray mustache. “There’s an urgent care round the corner. Can I walk you there?” A slight accent. “Yes,” Amy managed to say. The man knelt and gently took her heels from her. “Let me carry these, you just lean on me. Can you walk? Ill walk you there.” He held out an arm for her to pull on. When she stood, the driver of another car honked at his empty car, which blocked the road. He glanced back and told her to hold on, that he had some tissues in his car. She waited—holding the rip in her skirt closed with one hand, and covering her bloody face with the other, less for the bleeding and more so that she couldn’t see the gawkers staring at her—while he pulled his car to the end of the block, turned on the flashers, and returned with some Kleenex. She balled up a handful and dabbed her eye. It came away red. Her nose ached now, and it too bled, but she didn’t want to touch it directly or dab at it. The man peered at her brow. “It’s actually not that bad. Head wounds bleed a lot once they get going, so it seems worse than it is.” “Thank you,” she said for the first time, grateful to him that what he said might be true. “Thank you.” This time when Amy came home to her apartment, she opened the door to Reese popping up from the couch. A stream of tenderness engulfed her, Reese burbling, apologizing, weeping, promising to change, even at one point sliding down to her knees while hugging Amy, so that Amy had to disentangle her from around her legs— everything Amy could have ever hoped for that first morning. Yet even as Amy listened with something like gladness, and although the drama seemed to occur just beyond the bandage that covered her nose, she watched it all from across some new distance. “It’s okay, we'll be all right,” Amy kept hearing herself say. And it wasn’t that she didn’t believe it—in fact, the way she said it sounded very believable—it was that she and the person making these assurances didn’t quite seem to be one and the same. On the first day that Amy had to go back to work, the thought of putting on one of her cute little work outfits struck her as completely intolerable. How could she believe in the demure little office worker she had been playing? Some other character had revealed itself, an

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  A flogger…hmm. I think I’m in shock. My subconscious has emigrated or been struck dumb or simply keeled over and expired. I am numb. I can observe and absorb but not articulate my feelings about all this, because I’m in shock. What is the appropriate response to finding out a potential lover is a complete freaky sadist or masochist? Fear…yes, that seems to be the overriding feeling. I recognize it now. But weirdly not of him. I don’t think he’d hurt me—well, not without my consent. So many questions cloud my mind. Why? How? When? How often? Who? I walk toward the bed and run my hands down one of the intricately carved posts. The post is very sturdy, the craftsmanship outstanding. “Say something,” Christian demands, his voice deceptively soft. “Do you do this to people or do they do it to you?” His mouth quirks up, either amused or relieved. “People?” He blinks a couple of times as he considers his answer. “I do this to women who want me to.” I don’t understand. “If you have willing volunteers, why am I here?” “Because I want to do this with you, very much.” “Oh.” Why? I wander to the far corner of the room and pat the waist-high padded bench and run my fingers over the leather. He likes to hurt women. The thought depresses me. “You’re a sadist?” “I’m a Dominant.” His eyes are a scorching gray, intense. “What does that mean?” I whisper. “It means I want you to willingly surrender yourself to me, in all things.” I frown at him as I try to assimilate this idea. “Why would I do that?” “To please me,” he says as he cocks his head to one side, and I see a ghost of a smile. Please him! He wants me to please him! I think my mouth drops open. Please Christian Grey. And I realize, in that moment, that yes, that’s exactly what I want to do. I want him to be damned delighted with me. It’s a revelation. “In very simple terms, I want you to want to please me,” he murmurs. His voice is hypnotic. “How do I do that?” My mouth is dry, and I wish I had more wine. Okay, I understand the pleasing bit, but I am puzzled by the soft-boudoir Elizabethan-torture setup. Do I want to know the answer? “I have rules, and I want you to comply with them. They are for your benefit and for my pleasure. If you follow these rules to my satisfaction, I shall reward you. If you don’t, I shall punish you, and you will learn.” I glance at the rack of canes as he says this. “And where does all this fit in?” I wave my hand in the general direction of the room. “It’s all part of the incentive package. Both reward and punishment.” “So you’ll get your kicks by exerting your will over me.”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “I think you have that cliché the wrong way around,” I grumble. I am the moth and he is the flame, and I’m going to get burned. I know. “Eat!” “No. I haven’t signed anything yet, so I think I’ll hang on to my free will for a bit longer, if that’s okay with you.” His eyes soften, and his lips turn up in a smile. “As you wish, Miss Steele.” “How many women?” I blurt out the question, but I’m so curious. “Fifteen.” Oh…not as many as I thought. “For long periods of time?” “Some of them, yes.” “Have you ever hurt anyone?” “Yes.” Holy shit. “Badly?” “No.” “Will you hurt me?” “What do you mean?” “Physically, will you hurt me?” “I will punish you when you require it, and it will be painful.” I think I feel a little faint. I take another sip of wine. Alcohol—this will make me brave. “Have you ever been beaten?” I ask. “Yes.” Oh, that surprises me. Before I can question him on this revelation further, he interrupts my train of thought. “Let’s discuss this in my study. I want to show you something.” This is hard to process. Here I was foolishly thinking that I’d spend a night of unparalleled passion in this man’s bed, and we’re negotiating this weird arrangement. I follow him into his study, a spacious room with another floor-to-ceiling window that opens out onto the balcony. He sits on the desk, motions for me to sit on a leather chair in front of him, and hands me a piece of paper. “These are the rules. They may be subject to change. They form part of the contract, which you can also have. Read these rules and let’s discuss.” RULES Obedience: The Submissive will obey any instructions given by the Dominant immediately without hesitation or reservation and in an expeditious manner. The Submissive will agree to any sexual activity deemed fit and pleasurable by the Dominant excepting those activities that are outlined in hard limits (Appendix 2). She will do so eagerly and without hesitation. Sleep: The Submissive will ensure she achieves a minimum of eight hours’ sleep a night when she is not with the Dominant. Food: The Submissive will eat regularly to maintain her health and well-being from a prescribed list of foods (Appendix 4). The Submissive will not snack between meals, with the exception of fruit. Clothes: During the Term, the Submissive will wear clothing only approved by the Dominant. The Dominant will provide a clothing budget for the Submissive, which the Submissive shall utilize. The Dominant shall accompany the Submissive to purchase clothing on an ad hoc basis. If the Dominant so requires, the Submissive shall wear during the Term any adornments the Dominant shall require, in the presence of the Dominant and at any other time the Dominant deems fit. Exercise:

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  We weren’t sure that it would work again. But it worked well enough. The Eagle tore out of his house as soon as the first string of firecrackers started popping—he was waiting for us, I suppose— and we headed for the woods and got him in deeply enough that he never heard her drive away. The Colonel and I doubled back, wading through the creek to save time, slipped in through the back window of Room 43, and slept like babies. a f t e r the day after THE COLONEL SLEPT the not-restful sleep of the drunk, and I lay on my back on the bottom bunk, my mouth tingling and alive as if still kissing, and we would have likely slept through our morning classes had the Eagle not awoken us at 8:00 with three quick knocks. I rolled over as he opened the door, and the morning light rushed into the room. “I need y’all to go to the gym,” he said. I squinted toward him, the Eagle himself backlit into invisibility by the too bright sun. “Now,” he added, and I knew it. We were done for. Caught. Too many progress reports. Too much drinking in too short a time. Why did they have to drink last night? And then I could taste her again, the wine and the cigarette smoke and the ChapStick and Alaska, and I wondered if she had kissed me because she was drunk. Don’t expel me, I thought. Don’t. I have just begun to kiss her. And as if answering my prayers, the Eagle said, “You’re not in any trouble. But you need to go to the gym now.” I heard the Colonel rolling over above me. “What’s wrong?” “Something terrible has happened,” the Eagle said, and then closed the door. — As he grabbed a pair of jeans lying on the floor, the Colonel said, “This happened a couple years ago. When Hyde’s wife died. I guess it’s the Old Man himself now. Poor bastard really didn’t have many breaths left.” He looked up at me, his half-open eyes bloodshot, and yawned. “You look a little hungover,” I observed. He closed his eyes. “Well, then I’m putting up a good front, Pudge, ’cause I’m actually a lot hungover.” “I kissed Alaska.” “Yeah. I wasn’t that drunk. Let’s go.” We walked across the dorm circle to the gym. I sported baggy jeans, a sweatshirt with no shirt underneath, and a bad case of bedhead. All the teachers were in the dorm circle knocking on doors, but I didn’t see Dr. Hyde. I imagined him lying dead in his house, wondered who had found him, how they even knew he was missing before he failed to show up for class. “I don’t see Dr. Hyde,” I told the Colonel. “Poor bastard.” The gym was half full by the time we arrived.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Just stay the fuck out of it, dude,” Amy snapped. Her voice came out from somewhere in her chest, low and angry. She sounded like a man. She heard it immediately, with a stab of shame. Something clicked across Stanley’s eyes, so that he saw the scene before him with a new clarity, as occurs at the optometrist during an eye exam: Look at the top line. Do you see him now, Stanley? Do you see the man challenging you? “No, dude.” Stanley leered, loosely pulling his frame to full height. “T don’t think I will. I don’t like little faggots threatening me.” Faggot? For a moment, the misgendering threw Amy off. Was he calling Amy a man or not? If Amy was a faggot, didn’t that make Reese a faggot, which would make him a faggot? But she had no time to ponder inconsistencies. A change had come over Reese. She looked genuinely frightened, and began pushing Amy away from Stanley, whispering, “No, no, no.” Was Reese afraid that Amy would hurt Stanley? No, of course not. Quite obviously, Reese was afraid of Stanley. Around the perimeter of Amy’s consciousness flickered an awareness that there were people out there much crueler, with minds much touchier, more defensive and fragile, who kept themselves more ready and prepared for violence than Amy herself could ever tolerate. One did not escalate with people such as that. Reese still held the umbrella as she pushed Amy away and the rod pressed against Amy’s face, painfully. Amy took a step to the side, so that Reese clumsily fell forward past her. Stanley had closed the distance in one or two long steps. “I know all about you,” Stanley said, flicking his hand toward Reese. “She told me all about her little bitch girlfriend, when she came to get dicked down how she needed.” Was that true? Had Reese complained about Amy to him? Reese had hold of Amy’s arm now, was tugging her away. Amy wrested herself from Reese’s grip, and balled her fists. She had a sense that she would look stupid trying to fight in a tight skirt and heels. She could barely get her legs more than a foot apart. As Amy tensed her arms—the gestural prologue to a shouted Come at me, bro!—an expression of naked scorn came over Reese’s face. In some

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  | ae WAS TWENTY-SIX the first time a man hit her—as a man will sometimes hit a woman: not to injure her, necessarily, but to show her something. The blow, an open-handed hook, caught her as she opened her mouth to insult him. She hadn’t seen his hand coming. Her head jerked back. Her vision wavered. Surprise turned to pain, which in turn surprised her with its force. “Really?” she asked quietly. He coiled his muscles tight again, as if to show her that yes, really. If she had it all to do over, she would have spat at him. But her body, which did not like pain, betrayed her, and without thinking, she flinched and blurted out, “I’m sorry.” Satisfied, his shoulders dropped. Copper trickled thinly from a split lip into the cracks between her teeth. She probed the edges of the cut with her tongue, while her hands hung motionless at her sides, the stillness of an animal turned statue before a predator. Somewhere distant from her traitorous body, a covert part of her mind slipped away to calculate her advantage. Already she saw the doubt gathering across his face, the regret and worry that he’d hit her too hard. Already, in the cool distance, she saw how this would play out: She would make him suffer for this. She’d chip away at his self- image of a calm, assured, stoic man, ever in control of his will, unable to be goaded. She’d make him guilty, she’d make him doubt, she’d hint at abuse. When the animal part of her body had calmed itself, when the pain had turned to memory, she supposed she’d finger the bruise, almost voluptuously, her trophy from a grim victory.His name was Stanley, and he was a rich man in his late thirties who didn’t like dogs. That he didn’t like dogs was one of the things Reese decided was important about his character. When she told her friend Iris his name, Iris said that there was no such thing as a good Stanley. That the name is a curse that parents place upon a son to ensure the boy grows up to become a douche. Reese knew her

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  Two of them grabbed me, one with a hand on each of my upper arms, and walked me out of the room. On the way out, the Colonel mumbled, “Have a good time. Go easy on him, Kevin.” They led me, almost at a jog, behind my dorm building, and then across the soccer field. The ground was grassy but gravelly, too, and I wondered why no one had shown the common courtesy to tell me to put on shoes, and why was I out there in my underwear, chicken legs exposed to the world? A thousand humiliations crossed my mind: There’s the new junior, Miles Halter, handcuffed to the soccer goal wearing only his boxers. I imagined them taking me into the woods, where we now seemed headed, and beating the shit out of me so that I looked great for my first day of school. And the whole time, I just stared at my feet, because I didn’t want to look at them and I didn’t want to fall, so I watched my steps, trying to avoid the bigger rocks. I felt the fight-or-flight reflex swell up in me over and over again, but I knew that neither fight nor flight had ever worked for me before. They took me a roundabout way to the fake beach, and then I knew what would happen—a good, old-fashioned dunking in the lake—and I calmed down. I could handle that. When we reached the beach, they told me to put my arms at my sides, and the beefiest guy grabbed two rolls of duct tape from the sand. With my arms flat against my sides like a soldier at attention, they mummified me from my shoulder to my wrists. Then they threw me down on the ground; the sand from the fake beach cushioned the landing, but I still hit my head. Two of them pulled my legs together while the other one—Kevin, I’d figured out—put his angular, strong-jawed face up so close to mine that the gel-soaked spikes of hair pointing out from his forehead poked at my face, and told me, “This is for the Colonel. You shouldn’t hang out with that asshole.” They taped my legs together, from ankles to thighs. I looked like a silver mummy. I said, “Please guys, don’t,” just before they taped my mouth shut. Then they picked me up and hurled me into the water. Sinking. Sinking, but instead of feeling panic or anything else, I realized that “Please guys, don’t” were terrible last words. But then the great miracle of the human species—our buoyancy—came through, and as I felt myself floating toward the surface, I twisted and turned as best I could so that the warm night air hit my nose first, and I breathed. I wasn’t dead and wasn’t going to die. Well, I thought, that wasn’t so bad. But there was still the small matter of getting to shore before the sun rose.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  A closely related phenomenon can be demonstrated at the low end of the probability range. Suppose you are undecided whether or not to purchase earthquake insurance because the premium is quite high. As you hesitate, your friendly insurance agent comes forth with an alternative offer: “For half the regular premium you can be fully covered if the quake occurs on an odd day of the month. This is a good deal because for half the price you are covered for more than half the days.” Why do most people find such probabilistic insurance distinctly unattractive? Figure 2 suggests an answer. Starting anywhere in the region of low probabilities, the impact on the decision weight of a reduction of probability from p to p/2 is considerably smaller than the effect of a reduction from p/2 to 0. Reducing the risk by half, then, is not worth half the premium. The aversion to probabilistic insurance is significant for three reasons. First, it undermines the classical explanation of insurance in terms of a concave utility function. According to expected utility theory, probabilistic insurance should be definitely preferred to normal insurance when the latter is just acceptable (see Kahneman and Tversky 1979). Second, probabilistic insurance represents many forms of protective action, such as having a medical checkup, buying new tires, or installing a burglar alarm system. Such actions typically reduce the probability of some hazard without eliminating it altogether. Third, the acceptability of insurance can be manipulated by the framing of the contingencies. An insurance policy that covers fire but not flood, for example, could be evaluated either as full protection against a specific risk (e.g., fire), or as a reduction in the overall probability of property loss. Figure 2 suggests that people greatly undervalue a reduction in the probability of a hazard in comparison to the complete elimination of that hazard. Hence, insurance should appear more attractive when it is framed as the elimination of risk than when it is described as a reduction of risk. Indeed, Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein (1982) showed that a hypothetical vaccine that reduces the probability of contracting a disease from 20% to 10% is less attractive if it is described as effective in half of the cases than if it is presented as fully effective against one of two exclusive and equally probable virus strains that produce identical symptoms. Formulation Effects So far we have discussed framing as a tool to demonstrate failures of invariance. We now turn attention to the processes that control the framing of outcomes and events. The public health problem illustrates a formulation effect in which a change of wording from “lives saved” to “lives lost” induced a marked shift of

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  present an analysis of the cognitive and psychophysical factors that determine the value of risky prospects. In the second part we extend this analysis to transactions and trades. Risky Choice Risky choices, such as whether or not to take an umbrella and whether or not to go to war, are made without advance knowledge of their consequences. Because the consequences of such actions depend on uncertain events such as the weather or the opponent’s resolve, the choice of an act may be construed as the acceptance of a gamble that can yield various outcomes with different probabilities. It is therefore natural that the study of decision making under risk has focused on choices between simple gambles with monetary outcomes and specified probabilities, in the hope that these simple problems will reveal basic attitudes toward risk and value. We shall sketch an approach to risky choice that derives many of its hypotheses from a psychophysical analysis of responses to money and to probability. The psychophysical approach to decision making can be traced to a remarkable essay that Daniel Bernoulli published in 1738 (Bernoulli 1954) in which he attempted to explain why people are generally averse to risk and why risk aversion decreases with increasing wealth. To illustrate risk aversion and Bernoulli’s analysis, consider the choice between a prospect that offers an 85% chance to win $1,000 (with a 15% chance to win nothing) and the alternative of receiving $800 for sure. A large majority of people prefer the sure thing over the gamble, although the gamble has higher (mathematical) expectation. The expectation of a monetary gamble is a weighted average, where each possible outcome is weighted by its probability of occurrence. The expectation of the gamble in this example is .85 × $1,000 + .15 × $0 = $850, which exceeds the expectation of $800 associated with the sure thing. The preference for the sure gain is an instance of risk aversion. In general, a preference for a sure outcome over a gamble that has higher or equal expectation is called risk averse, and the rejection of a sure thing in favor of a gamble of lower or equal expectation is called risk seeking. Bernoulli suggested that people do not evaluate prospects by the expectation of their monetary outcomes, but rather by the expectation of the subjective value of these outcomes. The subjective value of a gamble is again a weighted average, but now it is the subjective value of each outcome that is weighted by its probability. To explain risk aversion within this framework, Bernoulli proposed that subjective value, or utility, is a concave function of money. In

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  "Late in the night we enjoy a misty moon. There is nothing misty about the bond between us." Without another word, the man pulled the princess to him and picked her up, carrying her into a gallery outside her room, sliding the door closed behind him. She was terrified, and tried to call for help. In the darkness she heard him say, a little louder now, "It will do you no good. I am always allowed my way. Just be quiet, if you will, please." Now the princess recognized the voice, and the scent: it was Genji, the young son of the late emperor's concubine, whose robes bore a distinctive perfume. This calmed her somewhat, since the man was someone she knew, but on the other hand she also knew of his reputation: Genji was the court's most incorrigible seducer, a man who stopped at nothing. He was drunk, it was near dawn, and the watchmen would soon be on their rounds; she did not want to be discovered with him. But then she began to make out the outlines of his face—so pretty, his look so sincere, without a trace of malice. Then came more poems, recited in that charming voice, the words so insinuating. The images he conjured filled her mind, and distracted her from his hands. She could not resist him. As the light began to rise, Genji got to his feet. He said a few tender words, they exchanged fans, and then he quickly left. The serving women were coming through the emperor's rooms by now, and when they saw Genji scurrying away, the perfume of his robes lingering after him, they smiled, knowing he was up to his usual tricks; but they never imagined he would dare approach the sister of the emperor's wife. In the days that followed, Oborozukiyo could only think of Genji. She knew he had other mistresses, but when she tried to put him out of her mind, a letter from him would arrive, and she would be back to square one. In truth, she had started the correspondence, haunted by his midnight visit. She had to see him again. Despite the risk of discovery, and the fact that her sister Kokiden, the emperor's wife, hated Genji, she arranged for further trysts in her apartment. But one night an envious courtier found them together. Word reached Kokiden, who naturally was furious. She demanded that Genji be banished from court and the emperor had no choice but to agree.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  And the whole time, I just stared at my feet, because I didn’t want to look at them and I didn’t want to fall, so I watched my steps, trying to avoid the bigger rocks. I felt the fight-or-flight reflex swell up in me over and over again, but I knew that neither fight nor flight had ever worked for me before. They took me a roundabout way to the fake beach, and then I knew what would happen—a good, old-fashioned dunking in the lake— and I calmed down. I could handle that. When we reached the beach, they told me to put my arms at my sides, and the beefiest guy grabbed two rolls of duct tape from the sand. With my arms flat against my sides like a soldier at attention, they mummified me from my shoulder to my wrists. Then they threw me down on the ground; the sand from the fake beach cushioned the landing, but I still hit my head. Two of them pulled my legs together while the other one—Kevin, I’d figured out—put his angular, strong-jawed face up so close to mine that the gel-soaked spikes of hair pointing out from his forehead poked at my face, and told me, “This is for the Colonel. You shouldn’t hang out with that asshole.” They taped my legs together, from ankles to thighs. I looked like a silver mummy. I said, “Please guys, don’t,” just before they taped my mouth shut. Then they picked me up and hurled me into the water. Sinking. Sinking, but instead of feeling panic or anything else, I realized that “Please guys, don’t” were terrible last words. But then the great miracle of the human species—our buoyancy—came through, and as I felt myself floating toward the surface, I twisted and turned as best I could so that the warm night air hit my nose first, and I breathed. I wasn’t dead and wasn’t going to die. Well, I thought, that wasn’t so bad. But there was still the small matter of getting to shore before the sun rose. First, to determine my position vis-à-vis the shoreline. If I tilted my head too much, I felt my whole body start to roll, and on the long list of unpleasant ways to die, “facedown in soaking-wet white boxers” is pretty high up there. So instead I rolled my eyes and craned my neck back, my eyes almost underwater, until I saw that the shore—not ten feet away—was directly behind my head. I began to swim, an armless silver mermaid, using only my hips to generate motion, until finally my ass scraped against the lake’s mucky bottom. I turned then and used my hips and waist to roll three times, until I came ashore near a ratty green towel.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  All these mental events belong with the angry woman—they occur automatically and require little or no effort. The capabilities of System 1 include innate skills that we share with other animals. We are born prepared to perceive the world around us, recognize objects, orient attention, avoid losses, and fear spiders. Other mental activities become fast and automatic through prolonged practice. System 1 has learned associations between ideas (the capital of France?); it has also learned skills such as reading and understanding nuances of social situations. Some skills, such as finding strong chess moves, are acquired only by specialized experts. Others are widely shared. Detecting the similarity of a personality sketch to an occupational stereotype requires broad knowledge of the language and the culture, which most of us possess. The knowledge is stored in memory and accessed without intention and without effort. Several of the mental actions in the list are completely involuntary. You cannot refrain from understanding simple sentences in your own language or from orienting to a loud unexpected sound, nor can you prevent yourself from knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 or from thinking of Paris when the capital of France is mentioned. Other activities, such as chewing, are susceptible to voluntary control but normally run on automatic pilot. The control of attention is shared by the two systems. Orienting to a loud sound is normally an involuntary operation of System 1, which immediately mobilizes the voluntary attention of System 2. You may be able to resist turning toward the source of a loud and offensive comment at a crowded party, but even if your head does not move, your attention is initially directed to it, at least for a while. However, attention can be moved away from an unwanted focus, primarily by focusing intently on another target. The highly diverse operations of System 2 have one feature in common: they require attention and are disrupted when attention is drawn away. Here are some examples: Brace for the starter gun in a race. Focus attention on the clowns in the circus. Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room. Look for a woman with white hair. Search memory to identify a surprising sound. Maintain a faster walking speed than is natural for you. Monitor the appropriateness of your behavior in a social situation. Count the occurrences of the letter a in a page of text. Tell someone your phone number.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  however, that your fear reflects your own insecurity, and insecurity is always a scruple of conscience or a anti-seductive. In truth, the longer you take, the more you show the depth fear or any sort of hesitation, he verily is a of your interest, and the deeper the spell you create. fool and a spiritless In a world of few formalities and ceremony, seduction is one of the few poltroon, and one which remnants from the past that retains the ancient patterns. It is a ritual, and its doth merit to be forever abandoned of kind fortune. rites must be observed. Haste reveals not the depth of your feelings but the • I have heard of two degree of your self-absorption. It may be possible sometimes to hurry honorable gentlemen and someone into love, but you will only be repaid by the lack of pleasure this comrades, for the which two kind of love affords. If you are naturally impetuous, do what you can to very honorable ladies, and of by no means humble disguise it. Strangely enough, the effort you spend on holding yourself quality, made tryst one day back may be read by your target as deeply seductive. at Paris to go walking in a garden. Being come thither, each lady did separate apart one from the other, 3. In Paris in the 1730s lived a young man named Meilcour, who was just each alone with her own of an age to have his first affair. His mother's friend Madame de Lursay, a cavalier, each in a several alley of the garden, that widow of around forty, was beautiful and charming, but had a reputation was so close covered in with for being untouchable; as a boy, Meilcour had been infatuated with her, but a fair trellis of boughs as never expected his love would be returned. So it was with great surprise that daylight could really and excitement that he realized that now that he was old enough, Madame scarce penetrate there at all, and the coolness of the de Lursay's tender looks seemed to indicate a more than motherly interest place was very grateful. in him. The Anti-Seducer • 139 For two months Meilcour trembled in de Lursay's presence. He was Now one of the twain was afraid of her, and did not know what to do. One evening they were dis- a bold man, and well knowing how the party cussing a recent play. How well one character had declared his love to a had been made for woman, Madame remarked. Noting Meilcour's obvious discomfort, she something else than merely went on, "If I am not mistaken, a declaration can only seem such an em- to walk and take the air, barrassing matter because you yourself have one to make." Madame de and judging by his lady's face, which he saw to be all

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  and do not necessarily correspond to the values of System 2. We believe that duration is important, but our memory tells us it is not. The rules that govern the evaluation of the past are poor guides for decision making, because time does matter. The central fact of our existence is that time is the ultimate finite resource, but the remembering self ignores that reality. The neglect of duration combined with the peak-end rule causes a bias that favors a short period of intense joy over a long period of moderate happiness. The mirror image of the same bias makes us fear a short period of intense but tolerable suffering more than we fear a much longer period of moderate pain. Duration neglect also makes us prone to accept a long period of mild unpleasantness because the end will be better, and it favors giving up an opportunity for a long happy period if it is likely to have a poor ending. To drive the same idea to the point of discomfort, consider the common admonition, “Don’t do it, you will regret it.” The advice sounds wise because anticipated regret is the verdict of the remembering self and we are inclined to accept such judgments as final and conclusive. We should not forget, however, that the perspective of the remembering self is not always correct. An objective observer of the hedonimeter profile, with the interests of the experiencing self in mind, might well offer different advice. The remembering self’s neglect of duration, its exaggerated emphasis on peaks and ends, and its susceptibility to hindsight combine to yield distorted reflections of our actual experience. In contrast, the duration-weighted conception of well-being treats all moments of life alike, memorable or not. Some moments end up weighted more than others, either because they are memorable or because they are important. The time that people spend dwelling on a memorable moment should be included in its duration, adding to its weight. A moment can also gain importance by altering the experience of subsequent moments. For example, an hour spent practicing the violin may enhance the experience of many hours of playing or listening to music years later. Similarly, a brief awful event that causes PTSD should be weighted by the total duration of the long-term misery it causes. In the duration-weighted perspective, we can determine only after the fact that a moment is memorable or meaningful. The statements “I will always remember...” or “this is a meaningful moment” should be taken as promises or predictions, which can be false—and often are—even when uttered with complete sincerity. It is a good bet that many of the things we say we will always remember will be long forgotten ten years later. The logic of duration weighting is compelling, but it cannot be considered a complete theory of well-being because individuals identify with their remembering self and care about their story. A theory of well-being that ignores