| Arachnophobia | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Arachnephobia[1] |
 | |
| Though most arachnids are harmless, a person with arachnophobia may still panic or feel uneasy around one. Sometimes, even an object resembling a spider can trigger a panic attack in an arachnophobic individual. The above cartoon is a depiction of the nursery rhyme "Little Miss Muffet", in which the title character is "frightened away" by a spider. | |
| Pronunciation | |
| Specialty | Psychiatry |
| Treatment | Exposure therapy[2] |
Arachnophobia is the fear ofspiders and otherarachnids such asscorpions[3] andticks. The word "arachnophobia" comes from the Greek wordsarachne andphobia.
People with arachnophobia tend to feeluneasy in any area they believe could harbour spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such aswebs. If arachnophobes see a spider, they may not enter the general vicinity until they have overcome thepanic attack that is often associated with their phobia. Some peoplescream,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 apicture, a toy, or a realistic drawing of a spider cantrigger intensefear.
Arachnophobia may be an exaggerated form of aninstinctive response that helped early humans to survive[4] or a cultural phenomenon that is most common in predominantly European societies.[5]
An evolutionary reason for the phobia remains unresolved. One view, especially held inevolutionary psychology, is that the presence ofvenomous 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 thePleistocene there were a sufficient number of venomous African spider fauna to trigger such an evolutionary fear.[6] 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 theanimal kingdom where size is a factor, but they can have medically significantvenom and/or cause skin irritation with theirsetae.[7] However, a phobia is an irrational fear as opposed to a rational fear.[3]
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] However, having a disproportionate fear of spiders in comparison to other, potentially dangerous creatures[8] present duringHomo sapiens'environment of evolutionary adaptiveness may have had drawbacks.[citation needed]
InThe Handbook of the Emotions (1993), psychologistArne Öhman studied pairing anunconditionedstimulus with evolutionarily-relevantfear-responseneutral stimuli (snakes andspiders) versus evolutionarily-irrelevant fear-response neutral stimuli (mushrooms,flowers,physical representation ofpolyhedra,firearms, andelectrical outlets) on human subjects and found thatophidiophobia (fear of snakes) and arachnophobia 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.[9]
PsychiatristRandolph 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 noprewired connection to fear, noting further that despite the emphasis of the risks ofspeeding anddrunk driving indriver's education, it alone 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.[10] Nesse, psychiatristIsaac Marks, and evolutionary biologistGeorge C. Williams have noted that people with systematically deficient responses to variousadaptive phobias (e.g. arachnophobia, ophidiophobia,basophobia) are moretemperamentally careless andmore likely to receive unintentional injuries that are potentially fatal and have proposed that such deficient phobia should be classified as "hypophobia" due to itsselfish genetic consequences.[11][12][13][14]
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.[15]
An alternative view is that the dangers, such as from spiders, are overrated and not sufficient to influence evolution.[attribution needed] Instead, inheriting phobias would have restrictive and debilitating effects upon survival, rather than being an aid. For some communities, such as inPapua New Guinea andCambodia, spiders are included in traditional foods. This suggests arachnophobia may, at least in part, be a cultural rather than genetic trait.[16][17]
Stories about spiders in the media often contain errors and use sensationalistic vocabulary, which could contribute to the fear of spiders.[18]
Thefear of spiders can be treated by any of the general techniques suggested forspecific phobias. The first line of treatment issystematic desensitization – also known asexposure therapy.[2] 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 donein 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.[19]
Recent advances in technology have enabled the use ofvirtual or augmented reality spiders for use in therapy. These techniques have proven to be effective.[20] It has been suggested that exposure to short clips from theSpider-Man movies may help to reduce an individual's arachnophobia.[21]
Arachnophobia affects 3.5 to 6.1 percent of the global population.[22]
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| Human interaction | ||
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