Ophidiophobia (/əˌfɪdioʊˈfoʊbiə/) orophiophobia (/ˌoʊfioʊˈfoʊbiə/) isfear ofsnakes. It is sometimes called by the more general termherpetophobia, fear ofreptiles. The word comes from theAncient Greek:ὄφις,romanized: óphis,lit. 'snake', andφοβία,phobía,'fear'.[1]
About one-third of adult humans have a fear of snakes, making it one of the most commonly reported phobias.[2] However, adults manifesting "clinically relevant" ophidiophobia accounts for only about 3–4% of the population.[3]
InThe Handbook of the Emotions (1993), psychologistArne Öhman studied pairing anunconditioned stimulus with evolutionarily-relevantfear-response neutralstimuli (snakes andspiders) versus evolutionarily-irrelevant fear-responseneutral stimuli (mushrooms,flowers,physical representation ofpolyhedra,firearms, andelectrical outlets) on human subjects and found that ophidiophobia andarachnophobia required only one pairing to develop aconditioned response while mycophobia, anthophobia,phobias of physical representations of polyhedra, firearms, and electrical outlets required multiple pairings and wentextinct without continued conditioning while the conditioned ophidiophobia and arachnophobia were permanent.[4] Similarly, psychologists Susan Mineka, Richard Keir, and Veda Price found that laboratory-raisedrhesus macaques did not display fear if required to reach across a toy snake to receive a banana unless the macaque was shown a video of another macaque withdrawing in fright from the toy (which produced a permanent fear-response), while being shown a similar video of another macaque displaying fear of a flower produced no similar response.[5]
PsychologistPaul Ekman cites this anecdote byCharles Darwin inThe Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) in connection with Öhman's research:
I put my face close to the thick glass-plate in front of apuff-adder in theZoological Gardens, with the firm determination of not starting back if the snake struck at me; but, as soon as the blow was struck, my resolution went for nothing, and I jumped a yard or two backwards with astonishing rapidity. My will and reason were powerless against the imagination of a danger which had never been experienced.[6][7]
PsychiatristRandolph M. Nesse notes that while conditioned fear responses to evolutionarily novel dangers such as electrical outlets is possible, the conditioning is slower because such cues have noprewired connection to fear, and that despite the emphasis on the risks ofspeeding anddrunk driving indriver's education, it does not provide reliable protection againsttraffic 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.[8]
Also, Nesse, psychiatristIsaac Marks, and evolutionary biologistGeorge C. Williams wrote that people with systematically deficient responses toadaptive phobias (e.g. ophidiophobia, arachnophobia,basophobia) are moretemperamentally careless and more likely to receiveunintentional injuries that are potentially fatal and have proposed that such deficient phobia should be classified as "hypophobia" due to itsselfish genetic consequences.[9][10][11][12] Evolutionary biologistRichard Dawkins argued thatsimulation andimagination would be favored by natural selection overtrial-and-error learning across species due to the selfish genetic consequences,[13] while anthropologistChristopher Boehm argued vicariouscultural learning would be favored over trial-and-error learning in noting howKalahari Bushmen parents teach their children about likely locations of venomous snakes.[14] Likewise, cognitive scientistSteven Pinker has noted that wariness around snakes,folk biology,folk taxonomies, andabstraction in speech and thought are allcultural universals.[15][16]
A 2001 study at theKarolinska Institute in Sweden suggested that mammals may have an innate negative reaction to snakes (and spiders), which was vital for their survival as it allowed such threats to be identified immediately.[17] A 2009 report of a 40-year research program demonstrated strong fear conditioning to snakes in humans and fast nonconscious processing of snake images; these are mediated by a fear network in the human brain involving theamygdala.[18]A 2013 study provided neurobiological evidence in primates (macaques) of natural selection for detecting snakes rapidly.[19]
In non-medical press and literature, the movie-characterIndiana Jones has been used as an example of someone with ophidiophobia.[20]
