arachnophobia

People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbour spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such as webs. If arachnophobes see a spider, they may not enter the general vicinity until they have overcome the panic attack that is often associated with their phobia. Some people scream, cry, have emotional outbursts, experience trouble breathing, sweat and experience increased heart rates when they come in contact with an area near spiders or their webs. In some extreme cases, even a picture, a toy, or a realistic drawing of a spider can trigger intense fear.

Arachnophobia may be an exaggerated form of an instinctive response that helped early humans to survive{{cite book|author1=Friedenberg, J. |author2=Silverman, G. |title=Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind|publisher=SAGE |year=2005 |isbn=1-4129-2568-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cognitivescience0000frie/page/244 244]–245|url=https://archive.org/details/cognitivescience0000frie|url-access=registration |access-date=2008-10-11}} or a cultural phenomenon that is most common in predominantly European societies.{{cite journal|author=Davey, G.C.L.|title=The "Disgusting" Spider: The Role of Disease and Illness in the Perpetuation of Fear of Spiders|journal=Society and Animals |volume=2 |issue=1 |year=1994 |pages=17–25 |doi=10.1163/156853094X00045}}

{{See also|Scorpion sting|Spider bite|Tick-borne disease}}

An evolutionary reason for the phobia remains unresolved. One view, especially held in evolutionary psychology, is that the presence of venomous spiders led to the evolution of a fear of spiders, or made the acquisition of a fear of spiders especially easy. However, there is no evidence that during the Pleistocene there were a sufficient number of venomous African spider fauna to trigger such an evolutionary fear.{{Cite journal |last1=Van Keer |first1=Koen | last2=Verhaeghe |first2=Paul |date=2008 |title=Spider related psychology: possible causes and history of rejecting attitudes |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280878268 |journal=Nieuwsbrief van de Belgische Arachnologische Vereniging |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=1}} Like all traits, there is variability in the intensity of fear of spiders, and those with more intense fears are classified as phobic. Being relatively small, spiders do not fit the usual criterion for a threat in the animal kingdom where size is a factor, but they can have medically significant venom and/or cause skin irritation with their setae.{{cite journal |last1=Isbister |first1=Geoffrey |last2=White |first2=Julian |title=Clinical consequences of spider bites: recent advances in our understanding |journal=Toxicon |date=April 2004 |volume=43 |issue=5 |pages=477–92 |doi=10.1016/j.toxicon.2004.02.002 |pmid=15066408 |bibcode=2004Txcn...43..477I |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0041010104000546 |access-date=7 December 2020}} However, a phobia is an irrational fear as opposed to a rational fear.{{Cite web|url=https://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/features/fear-factor-phobias#1|title=The Fear Factor: Phobias}}

By ensuring that their surroundings were free from spiders, arachnophobes would have had a reduced risk of being bitten in ancestral environments, giving them a slight advantage over non-arachnophobes in terms of survival.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}} However, having a disproportionate fear of spiders in comparison to other, potentially dangerous creatures{{cite journal|url=http://courses.washington.edu/evpsych/spiders%20are%20special%20-%20EHB%202009.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://courses.washington.edu/evpsych/spiders%20are%20special%20-%20EHB%202009.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|year=2009|doi=10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.08.005|title=Spiders are special: fear and disgust evoked by pictures of arthropods|last1=Gerdes|first1=Antje B.M.|last2=Uhl|first2=Gabriele|last3=Alpers|first3=Georg W.|journal=Evolution and Human Behavior|volume=30|issue=1 |pages=66–73|bibcode=2009EHumB..30...66G }} present during Homo sapiens' environment of evolutionary adaptiveness may have had drawbacks.{{citation needed|date=June 2018}}

In The Handbook of the Emotions (1993), psychologist Arne Öhman studied pairing an unconditioned stimulus with evolutionarily-relevant fear-response neutral stimuli (snakes and spiders) versus evolutionarily-irrelevant fear-response neutral stimuli (mushrooms, flowers, physical representation of polyhedra, firearms, and electrical outlets) on human subjects and found that ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) and arachnophobia required only one pairing to develop a conditioned response while mycophobia, anthophobia, phobias of physical representations of polyhedra, firearms, and electrical outlets required multiple pairings and went extinct without continued conditioning while the conditioned ophidiophobia and arachnophobia were permanent.{{cite book|editor-last1=Lewis|editor-first1=Michael|editor-last2=Haviland|editor-first2=Jeannette M.|last=Öhman|first=Arne|title=The Handbook of the Emotions|chapter=Fear and anxiety as emotional phenomena: Clinical phenomenology, evolutionary perspectives, and information-processing mechanisms|year=1993|pages=511–536|place=New York|publisher=Guilford Press|edition=1st|isbn=978-0898629880}}

Psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse notes that while conditioned fear responses to evolutionarily novel dangerous objects such as electrical outlets is possible, the conditioning is slower because such cues have no prewired connection to fear, noting further that despite the emphasis of the risks of speeding and drunk driving in driver's education, it alone does not provide reliable protection against traffic collisions and that nearly one-quarter of all deaths in 2014 of people aged 15 to 24 in the United States were in traffic collisions.{{cite book|last=Nesse|first=Randolph|author-link=Randolph M. Nesse|title=Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry|publisher=Dutton|year=2019|pages=75–76|isbn=978-1101985663}} Nesse, psychiatrist Isaac Marks, and evolutionary biologist George C. Williams have noted that people with systematically deficient responses to various adaptive phobias (e.g. arachnophobia, ophidiophobia, basophobia) are more temperamentally careless and more likely to receive unintentional injuries that are potentially fatal and have proposed that such deficient phobia should be classified as "hypophobia" due to its selfish genetic consequences.{{cite book|last1=Nesse|first1=Randolph|author-link1=Randolph M. Nesse|last2=Williams|first2=George C.|author-link2=George Christopher Williams|title=Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine|year=1994|pages=212–214|publisher=Vintage Books|place=New York|isbn=978-0679746744}}{{cite book|last1=Nesse|first1=Randolph M.|author-link1=Randolph M. Nesse|editor-last=Buss|editor-first=David M.|editor-link=David Buss|title=The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology|chapter=32. Evolutionary Psychology and Mental Health|pages=911–913|year=2005|edition=1st|place=Hoboken, NJ|publisher=Wiley|isbn=978-0471264033}}{{cite book|last1=Nesse|first1=Randolph M.|author-link1=Randolph M. Nesse|editor-last1=Buss|editor-first1=David M.|editor-link1=David Buss|year=2016|orig-year=2005|title=The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Volume 2: Integrations|edition=2nd|chapter=43. Evolutionary Psychology and Mental Health|page=1014|place=Hoboken, NJ|publisher=Wiley|isbn=978-1118755808}}{{cite book|last=Nesse|first=Randolph|author-link=Randolph M. Nesse|title=Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry|publisher=Dutton|year=2019|pages=64–74|isbn=978-1101985663}}

A 2001 study found that people could detect images of spiders among images of flowers and mushrooms more quickly than they could detect images of flowers or mushrooms among images of spiders. The researchers suggested that this was because fast response to spiders was more relevant to human evolution.Öhman, A., Flykt, A., & Esteves, F. (2001). "Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass". Journal of Experimental Psychology: 130 (3), 466–478.

An alternative view is that the dangers, such as from spiders, are overrated and not sufficient to influence evolution.{{Attribution needed|date=June 2018}} Instead, inheriting phobias would have restrictive and debilitating effects upon survival, rather than being an aid. For some communities, such as in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia, spiders are included in traditional foods. This suggests arachnophobia may, at least in part, be a cultural rather than genetic trait.{{cite journal|url=http://webs.wichita.edu/depttools/depttoolsmemberfiles/psychology/publications/Wagener%20&%20Zettle%20Paper.pdf |title=Targeting Fear of Spiders With Control-, Acceptance-, and Information-Based Approaches |author1=Wagener, Alexandra L. |author2=Zettle, Robert D. |year=2011 |journal=The Psychological Record |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=77–91 |doi=10.1007/BF03395747 |s2cid=44385538 |url-status = dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614031029/http://webs.wichita.edu/depttools/depttoolsmemberfiles/psychology/publications/Wagener%20%26%20Zettle%20Paper.pdf |archive-date=2011-06-14 }}{{cite journal|title=Fears, Phobias, and Preparedness: Toward an Evolved Module of Fear and Fear Learning|url=http://instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/371g/Ohman2001.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://instruct.uwo.ca/psychology/371g/Ohman2001.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|pmid=11488376|year=2001|last1=Ohman|first1=A|last2=Mineka|first2=S|volume=108|issue=3|pages=483–522|journal=Psychological Review|doi=10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.483}}

Stories about spiders in the media often contain errors and use sensationalistic vocabulary, which could contribute to the fear of spiders.{{cite journal|title=The global spread of misinformation on spiders |author1=Mammola, Stefano |display-authors=etal |year=2022 |journal=Current Biology |volume=32 |issue=16 |pages= R871–R873|doi=10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.026|pmid=35998593 |s2cid=251727654 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2022CBio...32.R871M |hdl=10400.3/6470 |hdl-access=free }}

The fear of spiders can be treated by any of the general techniques suggested for specific phobias. The first line of treatment is systematic desensitization – also known as exposure therapy.{{cite book|last1=Sperry|first1=Len|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NzgVCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA430|title=Mental Health and Mental Disorders: An Encyclopedia of Conditions, Treatments, and Well-Being [3 volumes]: An Encyclopedia of Conditions, Treatments, and Well-Being|date=2015|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9781440803833|page=430|language=en}} Before engaging in systematic desensitization, it is common to train the individual with arachnophobia in relaxation techniques, which will help keep the patient calm. Systematic desensitization can be done in vivo (with live spiders) or by getting the individual to imagine situations involving spiders, then modelling interaction with spiders for the person affected and eventually interacting with real spiders. This technique can be effective in just one session, although it generally takes more time.{{Cite journal| last1 = Ost | first1 = L. G. | title = One-session treatment for specific phobias | journal = Behaviour Research and Therapy | volume = 27 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–7 | year = 1989 | pmid = 2914000 | doi=10.1016/0005-7967(89)90113-7}}

Recent advances in technology have enabled the use of virtual or augmented reality spiders for use in therapy. These techniques have proven to be effective.{{cite journal|last1=Bouchard|first1=S.|last2=Côté|first2=S.|last3=St-Jacques|first3=J.|last4=Robillard|first4=G.|last5=Renaud|first5=P.|year=2006|title=Effectiveness of virtual reality exposure in the treatment of arachnophobia using 3D games|journal=Technology and Healthcare|volume=14|issue=1|pages=19–27|pmid=16556961 |url=http://iospress.metapress.com/content/d4cga4lnvyrcg5qu/?genre=article&issn=0928-7329&volume=14&issue=1&spage=19}} It has been suggested that exposure to short clips from the Spider-Man movies may help to reduce an individual's arachnophobia.{{cite news|url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/262298/|title=Israeli Researchers: "Spider Man" movies decrease Spider Phobia|author=Gabe Friedman|date=April 25, 2019|access-date=April 25, 2019|work=Arutz Sheva}}

Arachnophobia affects 3.5 to 6.1 percent of the global population.{{cite journal|last1=Schmitt|first1=WJ|last2=Müri|first2=RM|year=2009|title=Neurobiologie der Spinnenphobie|journal=Schweizer Archiv für Neurologie|volume=160|issue=8|pages=352–355|url=http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=22276624|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823014205/http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=22276624|archive-date=23 August 2016}}

Even though most spiders are small and not poisonous. They still trigger intense fear in many people, making arachnophobia one of the most widespread anxiety disorders.{{Cite journal |last1=Polák |first1=Jakub |last2=Sedláčková |first2=Kristýna |last3=Janovcová |first3=Markéta |last4=Peléšková |first4=Šárka |last5=Flegr |first5=Jaroslav |last6=Vobrubová |first6=Barbora |last7=Frynta |first7=Daniel |last8=Landová |first8=Eva |date=2022-01-06 |title=Measuring fear evoked by the scariest animal: Czech versions of the Spider Questionnaire and Spider Phobia Beliefs Questionnaire |journal=BMC Psychiatry |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=18 |doi=10.1186/s12888-021-03672-7 |doi-access=free |issn=1471-244X |pmc=8740501 |pmid=34991495}} It is strongly linked to sociodemographic factors like gender, age, education, and an individual’s tendency toward disgust. The majority of studies show that females are more likely to develop this phobia.{{Cite journal |last1=Hinze |first1=Jonas |last2=Röder |first2=Anne |last3=Menzie |first3=Nicole |last4=Müller |first4=Ulf |last5=Domschke |first5=Katharina |last6=Riemenschneider |first6=Matthias |last7=Noll-Hussong |first7=Michael |date=2021 |title=Spider Phobia: Neural Networks Informing Diagnosis and (Virtual/Augmented Reality-Based) Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy-A Narrative Review |journal=Frontiers in Psychiatry |volume=12 |pages=704174 |doi=10.3389/fpsyt.2021.704174 |doi-access=free |issn=1664-0640 |pmc=8421596 |pmid=34504447}}

• Apiphobia, fear of bees
• Entomophobia, fear of insects
• Myrmecophobia, fear of ants

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal| last1 = Stiemerling | first1 = D. | year = 1973 | title = Analysis of a spider and monster phobia | journal = Z Psychosom Med Psychoanal | volume = 19| issue = 4| pages = 327–45 |pmid=4129447 |language=de}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20011018013015/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1004_snakefears.html National Geographic: "Fear of Snakes, Spiders Rooted in Evolution, Study Finds"]

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{{Evolutionary psychology}}

Category:Arachnids and humans

Category:Phobias

Category:Spiders and humans

Category:Zoophobias