Animals trigger human fear immensely. This is not surprising because they are vicious predators who have brought upon us diseases. This instinctive fear makes sense from a survival point of view because after all, it could be the difference between life and death.
Obviously, we are not hunter-gatherers anymore, so those fear instincts are less crucial to our survival. But it doesn’t stop us from jumping out of our seats the moment we see a spider or snake.
Recently, in a study published in the British Journal of Psychology, researchers have identified which animals provoke the strongest reactions of fear and disgust and which are the most common source of animal phobias.
The team recruited 2,000 online participants from a Facebook group for Czech and Slovakian volunteers. They were asked to rate both how frightening and how disgusting they found 24 animals that are known to scare people, plus one control animal (a red panda). Only 10 out of those animals had a score of over three, signifying low to normal fear and disgust levels. They found that women were more afraid and disgusted than men.
The researchers were able to categorize the animals into five groups based on the amount of fear and disgust they provoked:
1. Dry, non-slimy invertebrates (which included spiders, wasps, and roaches)
2. Snakes and lizards
3. Mouse-like animals (mouse, rat, and bat)
4. Farm/pet animals (horse, bull, dog, cat, etc.)
5. Human endo‐parasites and exo‐parasites (which included intestinal helminths and lice)
In the end, the overall winner of inducing fear was the spider, earning a total of 4.39 out of 5 for fear and 4.47 for disgust. Close to 19% of the volunteers expressed an extreme fear when shown a photo of a spider. The researchers believe the spiders’ fear-inducing quality may be because of their many legs, their omnipresence in our homes, their capacity for “fast unpredictable movement,” and their penchant for dark hiding spots. While the parasites were most disgusting due to their connection to deadly diseases.
The runner-up was the venomous viper with 10% giving the highest fear score to the viper picture. However, the harmless grass snake didn’t receive a high fear rating.
The overall winner for triggering disgust was parasites, such as intestinal helminths and lice. These creatures can spread disease and cause health problems while living inside the body, so this isn’t surprising.
The red panda, which was used as a control animal, was still found to provoke more fear than cats, fish, snails, and lizards.
What are you scared of the most?
