In psychology, preparedness refers to an organism’s readiness or predisposition to be conditioned in certain ways due to its evolutionary history.
Think of preparedness like having an app pre-installed on your phone. Just as some apps come ready-to-use when you buy your phone (like the camera app), some behaviors or reactions are 'pre-installed' into species because they've been beneficial for survival throughout evolution.
Phobia: An extreme or irrational fear of something specific which often leads to avoidance behavior.
Conditioned Response (CR): Learned response to previously neutral but now conditioned stimulus.
Evolutionary Psychology: A theoretical approach in social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as perception, memory, and language from an evolutionary perspective.
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