Fear and institutions

Fear allowed early humans to adapt, evolve, and survive. When humans moved into settled communities, with more advanced means of production, the nature of fear-much like the nature of social relationships-changed. Once the means of social reproduction were secured, fear became less necessary as a survival instinct, and more useful as a heuristic device. Fear cannot be characterized as an essentially socially constructed phenomenon, or as the self-contained, individualized response to internalized traumas. The growth and nature of fear must be studied as a process that develops under its own inertia and as a phenomenon that is both shaped by and shapes its institutional setting. Fear should be understood as both structurally determined and socially transformative. This research examines fear, specifically, as it relates to neoliberalism and institutions. © 2013, Journal of Economic Issues/Association for Evolutionary Economics

A Durkheimian hypothesis on stress

Commonalities among the events that appear on life events lists and among the types of social supports which have been found to reduce the likelihood of illness are reviewed in the life events literature in an attempt to find a context within sociological theory. Social integration seems to underlie the stress-illness process. In seeking a tradition from which to understand these facts, we selected Durkheim's works in the context of the homo duplex concept wherein social integration involves the interplay of individualism and social forces. After presenting a specific hypothesis for the stress literature, the paper concludes with implications and suggestions for empirical research.