U.Va. research: Snake phobia hardwired

[Aaron_NSBM]

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Two University of Virginia researchers believe that humans are genetically predisposed to be deathly afraid of snakes. Judy S. DeLoache, a U.Va. professor of developmental psychology, said she has a snake phobia, but wonders why. "The question was, where did that fear come from?"

She believes it's because snakes would have posed a significant threat to our ancestors, so a fear of snakes remains hardwired into human brains today.

DeLoache said an experiment she conducted with graduate student Vanessa LoBue proved that adults and preschool children have an extraordinary ability to quickly pinpoint snakes amid harmless distractions.

They conducted three experiments with 24 adults and 24 3-year-olds. Both groups were shown a large touch-screen computer monitor that displayed nine color photographs.

They asked half of the people to find the single image of a snake among non-threatening pictures of caterpillars, flowers or frogs. The second group was told to find the single photo of a single non-threatening item among eight images of snakes.

The researchers found that adults and children were much faster at discovering snakes than they were at locating non-threatening flora or fauna.

The finding that children saw the snakes as rapidly as adults is particularly fascinating, LoBue said, because preschool children tend to be fearless and are less likely to have had a negative experience with snakes.

DeLoache's and LoBue's findings will be published in the March issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

LoBue said she has found similar results when testing for an innate fear of spiders. Much like snakes, some spiders would have posed a deadly threat to pre-humans. That study is currently under peer review, she said.

"It's really neat," she said. "We have an evolutionary bias against snakes and spiders."

Virginia is home to three types of venomous snakes — copperheads, canebrake rattlesnakes and timber rattlers.

Julia Dixon, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, thinks snakes have a bad rap, and said her agency spends time defending snakes.

"The general public out there thinks that the only good snake is a dead snake," Dixon said. But she notes that snakes are a key piece of the food chain because they eat mice, rats and other snakes.

Dixon said the easiest way to identify dangerous snakes in Virginia is to look into their eyes. Virginia's venomous snakes have vertical pupils, similar to a cat's eye, and harmless snakes have round pupils.

Either way, it is usually best to leave the snake alone, she said.

[echoxxash]

I've actually heard that some where. Like, back in the caveman days when we had a big reason to be afraid of snakes and spiders...now it's just passed down.
Although, I also think that parents classically condition their children to be afarid, "Oh my god! Spider! Kill it!"
Like LoBue said, most kids don't have any bad experiences with snakes, and they like new, interesting things. So, blame the parents! Haha.

[mpgt]

By the age of 3, kids have been taught to fear them. Now if 3 week or even 3 month olds were surveyed and expressed an aversion to snakes, it might be credible.

[Boacephus]

Interesting study I suppose. However, if I did not know and could not identify most of the North American species, I do not believe I would be getting close enough to look into their eyes, LOL.

[LukaTisus]

LOL, so would that make us the evolutionary oddballs? I've never been afraid of snakes, wasn't scared of spiders for the longest while until I stayed a month (without choice) in a house infested with brown recluse. Ever been chased by a spider you just attempted to stomp on? Not fun.

[sugarbear]

well, I have loved reptiles all my life. Maybe cuz I grew up in the woods, my german shepard was my trail leader and body guard. I played with snakes and lizards I found , kissed them and let them go. I've had Big Boy Basil for almost 16 years, my first son was born 6 years ago. I teach them well, and to love snakes, they have feelings too. My 2nd son is 18 months, he loves my snakes more than my older boy.

[VexalUntil]

I have a few problems with this study. For one, they said they "proved that adults and preschool children have an extraordinary ability to quickly pinpoint snakes amid harmless distractions." (third paragraph) In a valid scientific study you do not PROVE anything, even with statistics. You can support or falisfy the evidence, but you cannot prove it.

Also finding a correlation between age and the ability to pick out a picture of a snake does not necessarily mean that humans are predisposed to have a fear of snakes. The article didn't specifically state this, but it's implied. There could be another reason besides "fear" that causes us to recognize a snake amid other objects. In statistics this other reason is called a lurking variable. I have a hunch that if the same study was run using a group of ophidiophobes, people from this site, a group of comprised of half ophidiophobes and half snake lovers, and a group that doesn't care either way the results would be very similar to the results from this study.

Also like Luka and SugarBear said, what about those of us who do not show a fear of snakes? Wouldn't we still have a gene floating around somewhere that would have caused our fear? And I know there are people here who have gotten over their fear of snakes to actually have the desire to own them as pets.

I personally think that it's mainly caused by parental and cultural influences. There has to be some genetic basis to recognize what a snake is at an early age and this study does support that hypothesis. But it does not link association with an innate fear. Fears IMO are learned not genetic.

	In My Opinon IMO = In My Opinion and IMHO = In My Honest Opinion

[RevMojo]

Drax, you make a few good points. I'll acknowledge that this experiement did demonstrate the human ability to rapidly identify snakes, but certainly doesn't imply fear. Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense...how many genes do you think the caveman who couldn't recognize snakes get the opportunity to pass along?

[rawr_bowzer]

I learned this in my psych class. It was actually mapped out in the human genome too. I never believed it was "cultural" either, because one, if it was, one would get over that fear fairly easy. My mom, who is from a country full of venomous snakes, no constrictors, are deathly afraid of them. Even though I assure her my boa is totally harmless, she can't gather the courage to go near it. If you refute that if genes determine our fear, and people like us don't have an aversion, than why hasn't a cultural aversion averted us either?

Those who say that identification doesn't mean fear isn't correct, but not entirely wrong. In an evolutionary standpoint, it could mean life and death, an aversion would be a better word for it.

Evolutionary standpoint: Why are people more afraid of snakes than driving when more people die driving every day more than a snake could kill a person? When it was first introduced, why wasn't there an "aversion" to driving?

It's a representative heuristic. People are afraid of heights because they were genetically wired to stay away from cliffs, or else they'd fall and die. Explains why people are so afraid to fly on planes despite the fact that more people die driving or getting hit by meteors.

[KyleZ]

It's a very interesting talking point...Also remember that this is an article written about the study, and I'm thinking that the original study doesn't purport to "prove" one point or another, but posit the likelihood of "hard-wired" fears and phobias. That said, almost all phobias may be cured through positive conditioning.

From personal experience, I was raised not to fear ANY animal, but respect them all. My parents never taught me to fear snakes, kill them, run away, or anything of the sort. However, I DO remember my first encounter(s) with snakes in the back yard, from a very very young age (probably about 4-5) when we first moved to a house near a forest...I can remember my first recollection of a wild Black Rat snake that surprised me coiled on the branch of a tree I was playing around...My first reaction was an adrenaline rush, and yes, almost paralyzing fear, and I was stunned...yet at the same time fascinated somehow. But for the next 3-4 years until I actually had the opportunity to handle a snake, all my encounters were basically the same...I was fascinated by them, thrilled, but also almost paralyzed with fear, even when I was old enough to know they couldn't hurt me, if one sprung out of a pile of logs I was climing on, first reaction was an extreme "yikes"...It's funny because even during this time, with no hands-on experience, I was truly fascinated with snakes despite the fear, and loved to read about them and stare at them at the zoo or pet store...Finally one day, although my heart was racing, and yes, I was quite afraid on a "gut" level, not a mental level, a guy at the local pet shop handed me and let me handle an awesome Red Rat snake....after about 1 minute, most of that 'gut' fear subsided...and of course, then I was hooked . It took a few more encounters with snakes (encouraged by my parents, nonetheless) to completely lose that fear of snakes, and by the time I was 15 or so, there wasn't a snake I wouldn't handle.

Now, I do not believe I was conditioned in any way to fear them, however I distinctly remember a guttural fear initially to them, not mentally though, because I was instantly logically enthralled by them. I doubt most people have that same instinctive fear of birds, cats, or rabbits, even though they surprise us unexpectedly all the time, even from early ages. My mother is desperately, pathologically afraid of small rodents, and she definitely tried to pass that to me for an early age as I can remember, but NEVER have I been the least bit creeped out by those.

In all, maybe it's genetic, but likely not sweeping across "all" humans...I personally am somewhat of a "mutt" genetically in that my father's background is mostly made up of a culture, as posted above, of living on an island with many venemous snakes, no constrictors, few colubrids, etc...All my life, he thought my snakes were great, interesting, etc....but to this day he will NOT touch one...
I'd say at best it's a combination of genetic disposition and social conditioning, with lopsided variations between the population...Very interesting either way....