“Although a few others often get categorized as innate, such as fear of the dark or fear of creepy-crawly things, those are actually acquired after birth,” says Norrholm, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Fear of falling and fear of loud noises are the only two that, no matter what age we come into contact with them, will elicit a fear response because of our innate neural circuitry. A loud noise means, ‘Pay attention! You could be harmed!’ And your brain knows that going over a cliff or waterfall will cause harm. So you react.”⁠ ⁠ _____⁠ ⁠ The gazillion other fears that keep children up at night are rarely innate. Instead, most researchers suspect that fears are learned in various ways. “Fear learning is associated with the amygdala, the part of the brain that’s also involved in experiencing and perceiving fear,” says Stefanie Hoehl, a neuroscientist at the University of Vienna. “This applies to both direct fear learning through conditioning — say, if you’re bitten by ...