If slithering snakes make you cringe, you are not alone: Recent studies conducted by a University professor and a University alumna suggest fear of snakes is a trait present in people from birth.
Developmental Psychology Prof. Judy Deloache, lab director of the Child Study Center, and Dr. Vanessa LoBue, a University alumna, found that both toddlers and adults have an innate fear of snakes.
The purpose of the experiment, Deloache said, was to show that humans have a basic predisposition to identify different kinds of threats. The experiment tested whether children and adults have an inborn bias to detect snakes very quickly.
"I have a snake phobia," Deloache said. "And I've always found it fascinating that this is one of the most common fears around."
LoBue noted she had similar motivations for conducting the study.
"I always thought it was fascinating that so many people are afraid of snakes," she stated in an e-mail.
The study focuses on snakes, Deloache explained, because they have been perceived as a threat to humans since very early in evolutionary history.
"Our ancestors throughout evolutionary history would have been faced with the predicament of escaping potentially dangerous snakes," LoBue stated. "The ones who detected their presence very quickly would have been the ones most likely to survive and reproduce."
The study tested 3-year-old children who had no previous experiences with snakes, and adults, LoBue explained, and participants were presented with nine pictures on a touchscreen monitor.
"The pictures were either of a single snake among eight non-snake distractors [like] frogs, flowers, or caterpillars, or a single non-snake among eight snakes," LoBue stated.
Participants were instructed to find the snake target picture as quickly as possible and touch it on the screen, LoBue stated.
"What we found is that both the adults and children detected the snake targets more quickly than the flower, frog or caterpillar targets," she noted.
The results of the study corroborated the initial hypothesis that humans are predisposed to quickly perceive the presence of snakes.
"Other people have done research with adults using similar procedures, so [fear of snakes] had already been established in adults," Deloache noted. "What's new to our work is that this applies to 3-year-old kids"
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