History of the term 'appeasement': a response to Bailey et al. (2023).

This letter to the editor aims to address claims made by Bailey et al. [2023. Appeasement: Replacing Stockholm syndrome as a definition of a survival strategy. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14(1), 2161038] about the history of the concept of appeasement in relation to mammalian survival responses as well as the fawn response, by offering a brief overview and analysis of the literature. Appeasement in political and foreign policy, social justice, ethology, psychology, and communication studies (multiple mammalian and avian species) feature elements of coregulation. The original conceptualisation of the fawn response may result in the misperception that it is unrelated to coregulation. Appeasement and coregulation can occur whether the vulnerable party initiating the appeasement is in a state that supports affiliative, distress, or shutdown behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]