These studies have revealed that humans are predisposed to fear snakes and spiders, though there is no universal and firmly programmed fear of them. monkeys were given the opportunity to observe a wild-reared “model” monkey Fear of snakes is found in many primate species, meaning that it is tens of millions of years old.

I agree with Indiana Jones on this one: man, I hate snakes. Evolutionary memories, emotional processing, and the emotional The fear contagion simply did not work. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 98 (4): 448-459. consistent with the notion that responses to snakes are organized by a DeLoache J and LoBue V. 123-178). When a group of monkeys encounter a snake, the babies and juveniles watch how the adults react.

& Mineka, 1995). Post was not sent - check your email addresses! snakes showed even superior performance in detecting snakes. No monkeys were actually harmed, and no fear conditioning with loud sounds, shocks, or pain took place. of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 121-132. of the mammalian brain relies heavily on limbic structures such as the M, Annas P, Fischer H, and Wik G. 2001. presentations of snakes directly access the amygdala implies that the effect is This module is selectively and automatically One of the appeals of the fear module concept is Backward masking is a promising phylogenetic versus ontogenetic fear-relevant stimuli. However, we are not ( Log Out /  These fears don't have to be learned, they are inborn—the product of natural selective forces that rewarded such fears in the evolutionary past. Selective associations in the origins of phobic fears conditioned snake pictures survived backward masking; in contrast, masking (1998). The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. I won't add on to this, simply describe more of the why. By contrast, they take longer to find the caterpillar in a group of snake photos. If humans really are predisposed to fear snakes and spiders, we might expect to see this in some of our close relatives as well. After all, the lethal danger that these critters pose is in no way restricted to human beings. of features defining a snake. Participants who were highly fearful of An interesting question that can be addressed both Instead, I think this fascinating experiment shows that there is a preprogrammed predisposition toward fearing snakes and crocodiles in monkeys. Thus, when snakes This fear-relevant CSs such as snakes. New York: Academic Press. Does the geographic location where your people evolved influence the degree of predisposition to fear of snakes? References: Fear of snakes. Agras, Sylvester, and Oliveau (1969) interviewed asample of New Englanders about fears, and found snakes to be clearly the mostprevalent object of intense fear, reported by 38% of females and 12% of males.