Emetophobia in public or having to witness someone else vomit, as the start of the emetophobia. They may also be afraid of hearing that someone is feeling like vomiting or that someone has vomited, usually in conjunction with the fears of seeing someone vomit or seeing vomit. There is a strong agreement in the scientific community that there is no specific cause of emetophobia. Some emetophobics report a traumatic experience with vomiting, always in childhood. Some suggest that sufferers are victims of childhood abuse – sexual or physical. While this is occasionally true, it seems to be no more prevalent than
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.