Why are people creeped out by spiders

After a week of doing these tests, both the groups were then given exposed to images of flowers or spiders, but the exposure was for such a very short time. When the spider-fear tests were carried out on both these groups again, those who feared spiders had become less afraid.

If nothing else, at least sharing images of spiders may help reduce arachnophobia. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies.

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Recommended I can't even look at pictures of spiders Spiders fall from the sky in Australia Hundreds of baby spiders burst out of dead mum's egg sacs.

Already subscribed? Fear is in the eye of the beholder. While having a fear of being bitten by a spider seems rational, only 0. A fear of spiders may have evolved to help early humans survive. Back in the day, spiders were more of a threat. Getting bitten had more dire consequences so those who avoided spiders were more likely to survive.

While other animals like poison dart frogs have bright colours to ward off predators, deadly spiders often look just like their harmless cousins. We may have evolved over time a kind of survival instinct to avoid all spiders in case they are poisonous.

A fear of spiders could also be a cultural. Since the middle ages, spiders have been associated with carrying disease in European culture. Some psychologists think that spiders became a target for anxieties related to outbreaks of disease.

In many countries in South America, rates of arachnophobia are much lower and spiders are commonly eaten as food. But there is biological evidence that suggests a fear of spiders is innate. Using crickets, scientists found a fear of spiders could develop while still in the womb.

Researchers put pregnant crickets in a tank with a wolf spider. The newborn crickets whose mothers were exposed to this spider torment were twice as likely to seek shelter and hide as those whose mothers lived a spider-free existence. These crickets also froze when they came across spider faeces or silk. As a result, they were dramatically better at surviving. These results showed that a fear of spiders may develop before you are even born. This is an interesting concept in the world of epigenetics — where genes can be altered in response to the environment.

This experience may have happened in an ancestral human- which explains why a fear of spiders is so widespread. Share on Pinterest Researchers suggest that we may be predisposed to fear spiders and snakes. Greater stress response to spiders, snakes. Exposure to air pollutants may amplify risk for depression in healthy individuals.

Costs associated with obesity may account for 3. Related Coverage. Dissecting terror: How does fear work? Fear can be fun, and it might even be good for you Sometimes, fearful sensations can be a source of pleasure.

Everything you need to know about phobias. Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Surely it must be the threat of being bitten? Davey looked at that issue too. Davey said:. Animal fears may represent a functionally distinct set of adaptive responses which have been selected for during the evolutionary history of the human species. In , Peter Muris and his colleagues at the University of Maastricht tried to looked into this. Not surprisingly, if you give kids a list of things that might be scary for them, the vast majority check off things like not breathing, getting hit by a car, bombs, fire or burglars as quite important.

This is surprising. Of all the things kids might report, they list spiders as the number one fear. Perhaps conditioning is the pathway to arachnophobia.