What's Your Stress Response Type? Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn Explained

# What's Your Stress Response Type? Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn Explained

> **Quick answer:** There are four stress response types: Fight (confronting threats directly), Flight (escaping or avoiding), Freeze (shutting down), and Fawn (appeasing others to reduce conflict). Most people have a dominant pattern shaped by early experiences and nervous system wiring. You can identify yours with Fizzty's free stress response type quiz below — and with the right understanding, you can change it.

When something stressful happens — a tense email, a public criticism, a heated argument — your body reacts before your conscious mind catches up. That reaction is your stress response type, and understanding it is one of the most practically useful things you can do for your mental health, your relationships, and your career.

## The Science Behind Stress Response Types

The fight-or-flight response was first described by American physiologist Walter Cannon in the 1920s. Cannon observed that animals — including humans — respond to perceived threats with a rapid surge of adrenaline and cortisol that prepares the body either to fight the threat or run from it.

For most of the 20th century, psychology treated this as a two-part system. In 1994, neuroscientist **Stephen Porges** published his **Polyvagal theory**, which radically expanded this model. Porges identified three distinct states of the autonomic nervous system: