Well the idea is that fear is often times hyperbole - an unnecessary exaggeration of a natural and healthy response to a legitimate threat. So if you're mountain climbing or skydiving, a fear-adrenaline response mechanism is natural. A fear of death defying stunts isn't really what I'm looking into.

What I'm more interested in is if you were unreasonably afraid of spiders, for instance, and you read everything there was to read about spiders, and you saw a spider that you knew for certain posed no threat, but your logical understanding was overpowered by emotional fear. It's the difference between finding a Brown Recluse in your tent versus a St. Andrew's Cross in your shower.

And I've thought about the travel fear paradox quite a bit and it actually makes quite a bit of sense. One thing I've noticed is that it's really difficult to affect our fears with social adaptations, but logic is easily overcome by recurring social or cultural situations.