Overview
The 4 Fs represent four general buckets of reactions to potential threats:
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Fight: react aggressively towards the threat
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Flight: run from the threat
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Freeze: minimize attention from the threat
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Fawn: try to appease the threat through flattery or negotiation
History and Etmyology
It used to be common for this threat response framework to just be “fight or flight,” but since then we’ve come to acknowledge freeze and fawn as responses as well.