REAL LIFE NEWS: WHY HUMANS ARE SCARED OF SPIDERS AND SNAKES
by Hazed
If you’re scared of spiders or snakes it’s not because you have learned to fear them – it turns out that humans are hard-wired with that fear, and have been for millions of years.
Tests on babies show they have an instinctive stress reaction when shown pictures of snakes and spiders.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences in Germany and Uppsala University, Sweden tested 32 six-month-old babies. They showed them photos of flowers and fish, and of snakes and spiders, and measured their reactions. The pictures were matched up so a multi-coloured tarantula was shown back to back with a similarly coloured flower, and a coiled up snake with similarly coloured fish.
The researchers measured the dilation of the babies’ pupils, which showed whether they were stressed out by the pictures.
Lead researcher Stefanie Hoehl said, “When we showed pictures of a snake or a spider to the babies instead of a flower or a fish of the same size and color, they reacted with significantly bigger pupils.”
Previous research has not found this kind of effect with other potentially dangerous animals such as bears or rhinos. The reaction seems to be specific to snakes and spiders, presumably because of their poisonous bites. Responding to them with fear conferred an evolutionary advantage to our ancestors who could identify them and react more quickly.
Previous studies had been carried out on adults who could have picked up the phobias during their lives, but the tests on babies show that it’s not a learned response, but something embedded in the brain.
Which leads me to wonder why all humans don’t have a fear of spiders and snakes. I’m not bothered by them at all. Now slugs, on the other hand… urrrggg!
Source: http://nypost.com/2017/10/21/science-confirms-spiders-and-snakes-are-innately-terrifying/
