What is fight flight freeze fawn?

Fight flight freeze fawn is a concept in personal epistemology: Examine how you typically respond to pressure — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Example: Your manager announces a surprise deadline compression on Wednesday. You notice your jaw clench and your internal monologue fire up with counter-arguments about why this timeline is impossible. That's fight. Your colleague in the same meeting starts mentally composing her resignation letter. That's flight. The junior developer stares at his laptop and goes silent for the rest of the standup. That's freeze. The project lead immediately volunteers to absorb the extra work personally, canceling her weekend plans without being asked. That's fawn. Same pressure. Four different automatic responses. None of them were chosen.

This concept is part of Phase 37 (Autonomy Under Pressure) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for autonomy under pressure.