Fear the serpent: A psychometric study of snake phobia

Polák, Jakub; Sedláčková, Kristýna; Nácar, David; Landová, Eva; Frynta, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2016.05.024

Cited by 42 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Contrary to our expectations, in the sample consisted largely of college students, we found a significant cross-cultural agreement in fear evaluation ( r 2 = 0.65, p < 0.0001). This is in agreement with our previous study demonstrating that despite differences in snake abundance and risk of envenoming people from different countries self-report comparable snake fear (Polák et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Association Between Fear and Beauty Evaluation of Snakes: Cross-Cultural Findings

et al. 2018

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According to the fear module theory, humans are evolutionarily predisposed to perceive snakes as prioritized stimuli and exhibit a fast emotional and behavioral response toward them. In Europe, highly dangerous snake species are distributed almost exclusively in the Mediterranean and Caspian areas. While the risk of a snakebite is relatively low in Central Europe, Azerbaijan, on the other hand, has a high occurrence of the deadly venomous Levant viper (Macrovipera lebetina). We hypothesize that co-habitation with this dangerous snake has shaped the way in which humans evaluate snake species resembling it. For that purpose, we asked respondents from the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan to rank photographs depicting 36 snake species according to perceived fear and beauty. The results revealed a high cross-cultural agreement in both evaluations (fear r2 = 0.683, p < 0.0001; beauty: r2 = 0.816, p < 0.0001). Snakes species eliciting higher fear tend to be also perceived as more beautiful, yet people are able to clearly distinguish between these two dimensions. Deadly venomous snakes representing a serious risk are perceived as highly fearful. This is especially true for the vipers and allies (pit vipers) possessing a characteristic body shape with a distinct triangular head and thick body, which was found as the most fear evoking by respondents from both countries. Although the attitude toward snakes is more negative among the respondents from Azerbaijan, their fear evaluation is similar to the Czechs. For instance, despite co-habitation with the Levant viper, it was not rated by the Azerbaijanis as more fearful than other dangerous snakes. In conclusion, agreement in the evaluation of snake fear and beauty is cross-culturally high and relative fear attributed to selected snake species is not directly explainable by the current environmental and cultural differences. This may provide some support for the evolutionary hypothesis of preparedness to fear snakes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Association Between Fear and Beauty Evaluation of Snakes: Cross-Cultural Findings

et al. 2018

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“…The online assessment battery consisted of images of phobic animals that the respondents rated according to fear and disgust, two psychometrics of the most common animal fears of snakes (Snake Questionnaire, SNAQ: Klorman, Weerts, Hastings, Melamed, & Lang, ; Czech translation: Polák, Sedláčková, Nácar, Landová, & Frynta, ) and spiders (Spider Questionnaire, SPQ: Klorman et al ., ), one assessment of general fear of various objects or situations (Fear Survey Schedule II, FSS: Geer, ), and a measure of disgust propensity (Disgust Scale – Revised, DS‐R: Haidt, McCauley, & Rozin, , modified by Olatunji et al ., and van Overveld et al ., ; Czech translation: Polák, Landová, & Frynta, ). The FSS and SPQ not available in Czech were first translated by two independent native bilingual speakers, and the items were checked through a back‐translation procedure.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scary and nasty beasts: Self‐reported fear and disgust of common phobic animals

Polák

Rádlová

Janovcová

et al. 2019

British J of Psychology

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Animal phobias are one of the most prevalent mental disorders. We analysed how fear and disgust, two emotions involved in their onset and maintenance, are elicited by common phobic animals. In an online survey, the subjects rated 25 animal images according to elicited fear and disgust. Additionally, they completed four psychometrics, the Fear Survey Schedule II (FSS), Disgust Scale – Revised (DS‐R), Snake Questionnaire (SNAQ), and Spider Questionnaire (SPQ). Based on a redundancy analysis, fear and disgust image ratings could be described by two axes, one reflecting a general negative perception of animals associated with higher FSS and DS‐R scores and the second one describing a specific aversion to snakes and spiders associated with higher SNAQ and SPQ scores. The animals can be separated into five distinct clusters: (1) non‐slimy invertebrates; (2) snakes; (3) mice, rats, and bats; (4) human endo‐ and exoparasites (intestinal helminths and louse); and (5) farm/pet animals. However, only snakes, spiders, and parasites evoke intense fear and disgust in the non‐clinical population. In conclusion, rating animal images according to fear and disgust can be an alternative and reliable method to standard scales. Moreover, tendencies to overgeneralize irrational fears onto other harmless species from the same category can be used for quick animal phobia detection.

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“…Intensive fear of snakes has survived until today as for a majority of people, the snake is still among the most frightening animals (Davey, 1994;Polák et al, 2019b) that may trigger phobic fear in as many as 2-3% of population (Klorman et al, 1974;Klieger, 1987;Polák et al, 2016), which accounts for one of the most prevalent specific phobias (Eaton et al, 2018; cf average prevalence of any animal phobia across the world is estimated to 3.8%, Wardenaar et al, 2017). Even higher prevalence of snake phobia, despite local low abundance of snakes, was reported on a Swedish (5.5%, Fredrikson et al, 1996) or Hungarian sample (4.2%, Zsido, 2017 and3.3%, Zsido et al, 2018).…”

Section: Snakes As Evolutionary Threat Triggering Fear and Disgustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional Reaction to Fear- and Disgust-Evoking Snakes: Sensitivity and Propensity in Snake-Fearful Respondents

et al. 2020

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This paper continues our previous study in which we examined the respondents' reaction to two morphologically different snake stimuli categories -one evoking exclusively fear and another evoking exclusively disgust. Here we acquired Likert-type scale scores of fear and disgust evoked by the same snake stimuli by a total of 330 respondents. Moreover, we collected data about the respondents' age, gender, education, snake fear [Snake Questionnaire (SNAQ)], and disgust propensity [Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R)], and we analyzed the effect of these variables on the emotional scores (with special focus on snake-fearful respondents). In addition, we collected the SNAQ and DS-R scores from the respondents tested in the previous study using the rank-ordering method to directly compare the results of these two approaches. The results showed that non-fearful respondents give high scores of fear to the feareliciting snakes and high scores of disgust to the disgust-eliciting snakes, but they give low scores of the other emotional dimension (disgust/fear) to each. In contrast, snakefearful respondents not only give higher fear and disgust scores to the respective snake stimuli, but they also give high scores of fear to the disgust-eliciting snakes and high scores of disgust to the fear-eliciting snakes. Both Likert-scale scores and rank-ordering data show that the clear border dividing both snake stimuli categories dissolves when evaluated by the snake-fearful respondents.

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Fear the serpent: A psychometric study of snake phobia

Cited by 42 publications

References 30 publications

Association Between Fear and Beauty Evaluation of Snakes: Cross-Cultural Findings

Association Between Fear and Beauty Evaluation of Snakes: Cross-Cultural Findings

Scary and nasty beasts: Self‐reported fear and disgust of common phobic animals

Emotional Reaction to Fear- and Disgust-Evoking Snakes: Sensitivity and Propensity in Snake-Fearful Respondents

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