Facing Fears

I noticed that when I put my tickle face on, Pineapple flees giggling but she cannot help but look over her shoulder to see if the tickling is imminent. Of course when she checks six she starts veering off into the wall and tripping over her own feet. So she has taken to actually turning around and backing up slowly while she guards vulnerable armpits. Naturally I would love to get video or a picture of this but since I am the tickle monster it is hard to do.

Anyway, the philosophical leap I was going to make with this observation is our own human nature regarding fear. Is it too much to theorize that if I was afraid of something that I would rather turn around and meet it squarely, at the exclusion of other threats? In Pineapple's case she is avoiding something, the nature of which is very predictable and expected, yet not afraid of the tripping or banging into the wall, both of which are not as predictable, will hurt more, and unexpected.

Does our flight from our known fears, or facing them down, cause us to ignore more important issues in our environment?