Pooled by milk, the coffee needed to be warmed up just aC bit. The microwave oven sounded its three pleasant beeps, and, as one of the authors opened the door, the air filled with the aroma of steaming cafe au lait. As he grabbed the
handle of the ceramic mug, searing pain struck in a fraction of a sec- ond, too soon, too intense even to get the hot-handled mug to the counter. It crashed to the floor, splattering hot coffee for yards. After he got his painful hand under cold water, the victim realized that this mug must be different from others, which stay cool to the touch after microwaving. In fact, its handle must have had a metal core. The pain prevented the worse damage that would have resulted from more pro- longed contact. The fearful memory of the pain, months later, still makes him shy away from using that particular mug.
Pain and fear are useful, and people who lack them are seriously handicapped. As noted already, the rare individuals who are born without the sense of pain are almost all dead by age thirty. If there are people born without the capacity for fear, you might well look for them in the emergency room or the morgue. We need our pains and our fears. They are normal defenses that warn us of danger. Pain is the signal that tissue is being damaged. It has to be aversive to moti- vate us to set aside other activities to do whatever is necessary to stop the damage. Fear is a signal that a situation may be dangerous, that some kind of loss or damage is likely, that escape is desirable.