Ochlophobia going to sports games, or going to the mall. Ochlophobia Ochlophobia ("Fear of Crowds") and demophobia ("Fear of Unruly Mobs") are terms for types of social phobia or social anxiety disorder whose sufferers have a fear of crowds. Sufferers may offer various rationalizations of the phobia, such as the fear being trampled in a crowd, getting a deadly disease from people within the crowd, getting lost in the crowd, or feeling insignificant when surrounded by a crowd. People who are shy and introverted are most likely to experience ochlophobia, but not all introverts have anxiety problems. Ochlophobic people are often
Fear which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis. In humans and animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate. An irrational fear is called a phobia. Psychologists such as John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that there is only a small set of basic or innate emotions and that fear is one of them. This hypothesized set includes such emotions as acute stress reaction, anger, angst, anxiety, fright, horror, joy, panic, and sadness.