Everyone is scared of something. For me, I am terrified of spiders. I was always fearful of spiders as a young girl, but the fearfulness has only been getting stronger over the past several years. I have officially diagnosed myself with arachnophobia. The good thing about arachnophobia is it is one of the most common phobias around the world. So, why exactly are we afraid of spiders? And is there a way to control the fear of spiders?

By the way, I basically cried while thinking and posting pictures of spiders on this blog.

According to the American Psychiatric Association,  phobias in general influence more than one in ten people in the United States. Approximately 40 percent of the phobias reported are related to bugs, spiders, mice, and bats. Chris Buddle states, “Psychologists believe that one reason why people fear spiders is because of some direct experience with the arachnids instilled that fear in them.”

Graham Davey conducted a study in 1991 to further understand our deep fear of spiders. He took 18 undergraduate students and ask them about their fear of spiders. 75 percent of the students who were interviewed said that they were at least a little bit terrified, if not severely scared of spiders. Of the people asked, most of the individuals who were scared of spiders were females. Researchers have been trying to find a genetic link to the fear of spiders involved in families, but no such strong links have been made between this theory. However, Davey declared that the actual physical appearance of spiders may be the scariest thing to human beings rather than actually being bitten: “Animal fears may represent a functionally distinct set of adaptive responses which have been selected for during the evolutionary history of the human species.”

Numerous other scientists criticized Davey’s work because a “spider-trauma” event could have happened to someone during childhood, and these memories tend to never really vanish. Peter Muris conducted a study in 1997 at the University of Maastricht. He gave a list to a number of students that had many things that adolescents are terrified of. Most kids checked off things like getting hit by a vehicle, bombs, or fires. However, when the kids were given the option to write down what their biggest fear was, both boys and girls reported their biggest fear was spiders. Contrasting to Davey’s work, Muris discovered that children who were most fearful of spiders was due to a particular event that involved spiders.

To ensure that conditioning is the primary reason for the fear of spiders, scientists conducted another study to make sure genetic factors did not play a role. John Hettema at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics conducted a study in 2003. Hettema conducted twin studies to ensure genetics were not a factor in why we are so afraid of spiders. Hettema recorded responses to of twins to pictures of spiders/snakes compared pictures of shapes (circles and triangles). The results showed that genetic affects are “substantial”, meaning the fear of spiders is hereditary. In conclusion, this study showed that you do not have to experience a specific spider-related incident to actually become afraid of spiders.

So, is there anything to do to lessen this fear? A 2013 study was conducted by Paul Siegel from the State University of New York. They conducted an experiment in which they divided the people into “phobic” and “non-phobic” groups determined by results from arachnophobia tests.  The tests included pictures of spiders and flowers, but each person was exposed to these images for a short time. The results displayed that the images had an impact on them subconsciously. When the spider tests were experimented on both of the groups for a second time, those who had once feared spiders were less afraid. There have been no other significant studies in reducing the severity of arachnophobia, so for now, scientists have stuck to the notion that sharing images of spiders could potentially help reduce the fear of spiders.

Overall, I believe that both Davey’s and Hettema’s studies have truth in them. I believe that you will be more scared of spiders if you experience an incident that involved spiders as an adolescent. For example, I had an incident where a giant hairy spider jumped onto my head when I was walking with some of my friends. I will never forget this event and because it is still engraved in my mind, I am that more scared of spiders. I also believe that genetics have a role in arachnophobia as well. If your parent has a severe fear of spiders, I think there is a greater likelihood of you developing a fear of spiders because you are in an environment centered around this particular fear.

Sources:

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/why-are-we-afraid-spiders

http://phobias.about.com/od/introductiontophobias/a/arachnophobia.htm