I have no idea what triggered my fear of heights, but I remember when it developed into a full fledged phobia. Around the age of 35, on holidays, and climbing the internal stairs of a lighthouse, got halfway and the extreme anxiety took over: I couldn’t move, up nor down and was paralysed with fear.
Since then, the phobia has just accentuated, and now, like others, I can’t watch movies/videos of people in precarious places. It literally takes my breath away and my heart starts racing.
Well, I was too late, but the first thing that came to mind was Eleanor Gibson’s visual cliff experiment.
So, yes, is the answer.
Eleanor’s husband, JJ, also a psychologist, expanded on this notion throughout his career with his elaboration of the notion of ecological niches, as he described the theory. Which remains uncontested as a true position.
I have always had what I think of as severe acrophobia. Once we went to visit the Mt. Ste. Helen after the volcano. Trip up the east slope was fine since to the right was higher than the road. But it was just the opposite coming down. The road had no guardrail and I was terrified. I asked my son to drive and just sat in the car with my eyes closed until we got to the bottom. I don’t think that would have happened had there been even a low guardrail. Or if all the trees hadn’t been destroyed by the volcano.
I cannot even watch a movie of mountain climbers. Once I went to the grand canyon. I could not bear to watch the people walking close to the edge even though there was a low stone wall. I cannot climb past the second rung of a ladder. On the other hand, what doesn’t bother me is looking down from our 4th storey balcony behind a solid 4 foot high railing. Or flying, not the least.
Was it innate? I don’t know of any precipitating incident. One other phobia I used to have was for bees. My mother was terrified of bees and reacted strongly if she ever saw one. I copies this fear. Then I got stung. “Is that all?” I said to myself and the fear dissipated immediately and no trace has ever come back.
I what I would consider a “normal” fear of heights. I don’t find that flying triggers it at all. There’s something about the vast distance and small windows that negate the height.
But, balconies are a different story. Part of it is the engineer in me, which simply doesn’t trust anything cantilevered, but more has to do with the intimacy of the experience.
For example, I think I would find myself avoiding the windows in this place:
Yeah, sometimes phobias can go away very suddenly like that. I used to be phobic of house centipedes. Then one day while I was doing laundry, somehow or another one fell onto my hand. In the moment, I yelped like a little girl… but nothing in particular happened, and since then, I have basically no reaction to them.
If I feel secured, I have no fear but without some device securing me I am paralyzed. My feet about 10 ft off the ground is where that seems to set in. I worked the top floors of skyscrapers, but I always used a safety harness. I was still very uncomfortable and quit that job.
For me it is clearly tied to the perception of risk.
Many years ago when I was an undergraduate, some friends discovered that the door to the roof of a 15 story building on campus didn’t lock properly. We could ascend onto the roof. Fabulous views and no guard rail. Just a neat 90 degree edge. One could feel the repulsive force push one back from the edge. I got within may two meters of it. Far enough away that even the most bizarre accident would not see me fall. But I actually had nightmares about it later.
My house is three stories high and has windows that go floor to ceiling. I can stand inside touching the windows for as long as I like. And I climb on the roof to clean the gutters. I feel more in control.
Years ago I was visiting an old colleague in Scotland, and a travelling fair was in town. We visited it. My friend gave a couple of pounds and ask me to take his son on the Ferris Wheel. So I did. The damned thing was no higher than a two story house, but was constructed of little more than rusty pipe. I was almost sick. The sensation of uncontrollable risk was physical. My friend admitted afterwards that that was why he asked me to take his son. He hated them as much as I did. He still owes me for that.
I tend to feel that at least at the adult human stage we have enough higher cognitive function to understand in a primitive way the risk. Seeing others in such situations triggers us just as much.