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Movement initiation times (in seconds) are presented across the place of the picture using separate bars for the target type and separate panels for group. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Source publication
How people experience nature influences their attitudes and actions towards it. Having had a negative encounter with an animal may facilitate avoidance and freezing responses which may encourage negative feelings towards it and the environment in which it is found. Animals associated with fear, such as snakes, are often the victims of hunting and k...
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Perceptions about snakes range from fascination to phobia. This topic allows us to discuss important environmental issues of basic education that must be approached with safety and empathy by teachers. Considering that environmental education is a curriculum guideline to be developed by teachers from different areas of knowledge, we investigated wh...
Citations
... Most snakebites occur when people accidentally step on a snake with an unprotected foot or otherwise provoke a defensive bite, often without realising the snake's presence until the last moment. Consequently, extensive research has primarily focused on how humans detect hidden snakes in their environment and avoid them, particularly in phenomena such as detection Mineka 2001, 2003;LoBue and DeLoache 2011;Soares et al. 2014;Van Strien et al. 2016;Van Strien and Isbell 2017, Coelho et al. 2019, Zsidó et al. 2024b, recognition (Wombolt and Caine 2016) and prioritisation of snake-related stimuli (Jensen and Caine 2021; but see Lazarević et al. 2020;Zsidó et al. 2024a). ...
Fear of snakes is common not only in humans but also in other primates. Consequently, snakes are salient stimuli associated with prioritized attention, early detection and emotional significance. This has been interpreted as an adaptive evolutionary response of the primate brain to a risk of envenoming by a hidden snake. However, the struggle between mammals and snakes is not one-sided. Humans and carnivores regularly kill snakes, and thus snakes develop deterring defensive behaviour that may directly evoke enhanced fear. Here, we show that snakes depicted in threatening posture evoked on average more fear than those in resting posture. Significantly, African (Somali) and European (Czech) respondents considerably agreed on the relative fear elicited by various snakes. Nonetheless, not all defensive postures are equally efficient. Threatening cobras were perceived as top fear-evoking stimuli, even though most of them are not considered very frightening in resting posture. This effect can be attributed to their conspicuous hooding posture which evolved into an efficient warning signal for mammalian predators. Our result demonstrates that cobras are more effective than other snakes in the ability to evoke human fear by a simple behavioural display—hooding. This can be primarily explained by the behavioural evolution of cobras which successfully exploited pre-existing cognitive mechanisms of mammals. Whether human ancestors cohabiting with deadly venomous cobras further improved their fear response to hooding is uncertain, but likely.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00114-024-01952-2.
... Despite its high prevalence, only one test to measure snake phobia was developed by Klorman et al. in 1974 [21] and this was then used in multiple countries [15,16,22,23]. The questionnaire was then revised by Zsido et al. 2018 [24] to create the SNAQ12, which is a shorter psychometric test for use in clinical settings and this has been proven to be effective, economical, and efficient in Hungary [25,26], Thailand [27], the USA [28] and the Czech Republic [29]. These studies have presented sufficient evidence to confirm the psychometric properties, uni-dimensionality, validity, utility and reliability of this test in assessing snake phobia among different populations. ...
... All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS (version 26) (IBM, UK), JASP (version 0.17.2) (JASP team 2023, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), GraphPad Prism (version 8.0.0) (GraphPad Prism Inc, USA) and Jamovi (version 2.3) (www.jamovi.org). The cut-off score of �8 on the SNAQ12 was indicative of phobia, as determined by the previous studies [24,25] where they demonstrated that the optimal balance between sensitivity and specificity for this test was attained when a cut-off score of >7.5, which illustrated a sensitivity of 0.909 and specificity of 0.905. This scoring of �8 on the SNAQ-12 has been used globally in psychometric testing [24]. ...
... Our perceptions and interactions with the environment influence our relationships with the communities. Human-animal conflict is more common now than ever before and negative emotions and experiences are thought to underpin the maintenance and longevity of specific phobias including snake phobia [25]. Our intrinsic negative attitudes to snakes resulting in humans attacking and killing them have been one of the causes of the great losses to our reptile biodiversity. ...
Background
A specific phobia is an anxiety disorder that is characterised by persistent and excessive fear in the presence of the object of the phobia. Animal phobias are the most prevalent forms of specific phobia among humans. Fear of snakes (snake phobia) is present in non-human primates which suggests its evolutionary origins as the ability to detect the threat of snakes was critical for survival. Snake phobia is a critical factor in protecting snakes and mitigating snakebite burden. To date, only one standardised psychometric test [the Snake Questionnaire (SNAQ) developed in 1974] has been used to quantify snake phobia although this was not performed in snakebite-endemic countries. In this study, we aimed to determine snake phobia in India, where snakebites and resulting deaths, disabilities and socioeconomic impacts are high.
Methodology/Principal findings
A modified version of the SNAQ (i.e. SNAQ12), which has previously demonstrated internal consistency, excellent reliability, and good discrimination between phobics and non-phobics in Europe was used in this study. SNAQ12 was developed both in English and Tamil and validated by testing on several individuals. Then, the final questionnaire was disseminated to members of the public through various methods including social media and in person through academic and clinical organisations. We received a total of 2032 responses, comprising 1086 [53.4%] males and 946 [46.6%] females, and these data were analysed to determine various aspects of snake phobia in the study population.
Conclusions/Significance
The results demonstrated good internal consistency in using SNAQ12 to determine the phobia amongst the tested population. The data suggests that males are more snake-phobic in all age groups than females in India, in contrast to previous research that suggested that females are usually more snake-phobic. No other critical factors contribute to snake phobia in this study population. The use of the SNAQ12 allowed us to easily discriminate between individuals with phobia and non-clinical controls. This tool can be used as part of the One Health approach to better understand the relationships between snake phobia and snakebites and their impact on the mental health and well-being of vulnerable populations.
... Our perceptions and interactions with the environment influence our relationships with the communities. Human-animal conflict is more common now than ever before and negative emotions and experiences are thought to underpin the maintenance and longevity of specific phobias including snake phobia [41]. Our intrinsic negative attitudes to snakes resulting in humans attacking and killing them have been one of the causes of the great losses to our reptile biodiversity. ...
Background: A specific phobia is an anxiety disorder that is characterised by persistent and excessive fear in the presence of the object of the phobia. Animal phobias are the most prevalent forms of specific phobia among humans. Fear of snakes is present in non-human primates which suggests its evolutionary origins as the ability to detect the threat of snakes was critical for survival. Snake phobia is a critical factor in protecting snakes and mitigating snakebite burden. To date, only one standardised psychometric test [the Snake Questionnaire (SNAQ) developed in 1974] has been used to quantify snake phobia. Here, we estimated the level of snake phobia in India, where snakebites are highly prevalent using a modified version of the SNAQ (SNAQ12), which has previously demonstrated internal consistency, excellent reliability, and good discrimination between phobics and non-phobics in Hungary although it has never been tested among the general population in a snakebite-endemic country.
Methodology/principal findings: SNAQ12 was developed both in English and Tamil and validated by testing on several individuals. Then, the questionnaire was disseminated to members of the public through various methods including social media and in person through academic and clinical organisations. We received a total of 2032 responses, comprising 1086 [53.4%] males and 946 [46.6%] females.
Conclusions/significance: The results demonstrated good internal consistency in determining phobia amongst the population. The data suggests that males are more likely to be snake-phobic than females, in contrast to previous research that suggested that females are usually more snake-phobic. The use of the SNAQ12 allowed us to easily discriminate between individuals with phobia and non-clinical controls. This tool can be used as part of the One Health approach to better understand the relationships between snake phobia and snakebites and their impact on the mental health and well-being of vulnerable populations.
... we will briefly explore what biophobia entails, how it operates, and why it is important in the context of the relationship between humans and nature. We will also highlight the findings of each of the included papers (Catapani et al., 2024;Correia & Mammola, 2024;Gish et al., 2024;Norberg et al., 2024;Prokop et al., 2024;Puri et al., 2024;Zsidó et al., 2024) in the most relevant sections. ...
... Before discussing the details of the included studies, we provide a brief overview of the overall contents of the special issue. As listed in Table 1, our special feature comprises seven papers: six empirical studies (Catapani et al., 2024;Correia & Mammola, 2024;Gish et al., 2024;Prokop et al., 2024;Puri et al., 2024;Zsidó et al., 2024) and one review article (Norberg et al., 2024). These studies explore diverse aspects of biophobia, which can be broadly categorised into four major themes: (1) exploring factors contributing to the development of biophobia (Drivers), (2) examining consequences for humans (e.g. ...
... From a human standpoint, Norberg et al. (2024) discuss the formation mechanisms, consequences for humans, and mitigation strategies of biophobia from a clinical psychology standpoint. Similarly, Zsidó et al. (2024) explore the behavioural patterns of individuals with biophobia using a cognitive science approach. Additionally, Correia and Mammola (2024) investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of biophobia and their drivers from a culturomics perspective. ...
Throughout history, humans have maintained an intricate connection with nature, often finding fascination with, and deriving numerous benefits from, the natural world. This positive emotional bond with nature, which is considered to have a genetic basis, is known as “biophilia”.
However, biophilia represents just one facet of our relationship with nature. People can also harbour strong negative emotions and attitudes towards nature, increasingly referred to as “biophobia”. Current evidence suggests that the prevalence of biophobia is high and increasing, especially in more developed and urbanised societies. Despite this, the importance of biophobia has largely been overlooked in discussions about human‐nature interactions.
This special feature: ‘Biophobia: a hidden dimension of human‐nature relationships’ includes seven papers from different disciplinary perspectives, including biodiversity conservation, psychology, and behavioral science. These studies explore diverse aspects of biophobia, with a particular emphasis on its drivers and consequences. They also provide key insights into how to mitigate excessive phobic responses towards nature.
In this introductory paper, we will briefly explore what biophobia entails, how it operates, and why it is important in the context of the human‐nature relationship. We outline that biophobia can manifest in response to a wide range of organisms and natural environments, and it can have significant adverse impacts on both human health and well‐being and efforts to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis.
We hope that this special feature will serve as a catalyst for more biophobia research, encouraging collaboration among researchers from diverse backgrounds.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
... Why does the motor interference effect occur? Research has explored the mechanisms underlying approach-avoidance responses to dangerous stimuli (Garcia-Guerrero et al., 2023;Rinck et al., 2021;Zsido et al., 2023), which can be better understood based on reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST; Corr, 2008;Gray and McNaughton, 2000). According to RST, three systems process the conflict between approach and avoidance behavior: (1) the behavioral approach system (BAS), which controls approach behavior after exposure to appetitive stimuli; (2) the fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS), which controls avoidance responses to aversive stimuli; and (3) the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), which is activated when a conflict arises between approach and avoidance responses (Corr, 2013). ...
... The grasping gestures required for all targets were evaluated; all 22 subjects concurred that all target stimuli in the power-grip condition required a power grasping gesture for pickup, and all target stimuli in the precision-grip condition required a precision grasping gesture for pickup. Additionally, in reference to previous studies (Zsido et al., 2020(Zsido et al., , 2023, to prevent individual differences from causing subjects to have fearful experiences with specific stimuli, we asked subjects if they were fearful of any of the target stimuli. None of the subjects reported fear of the target stimuli used in the experiment. ...
... As a result, individuals slow down their responses towards dangerous objects in the power-grip target condition. The findings are in line with previous studies investigating approach-avoidance behavior using touchscreen-based or mousetracking tasks, which showed that individuals' movements towards dangerous objects are delayed compared to that towards safe objects (Rinck et al., 2021;Zsido et al., 2023). However, in the precision-grip target condition, although BAS and FFFS are still activated, the BIS (motor inhibition) is not activated due to insufficient activation strength elicited by the approach and avoidance affordances. ...
Visual information can be used to plan, start, and coordinate manual movements in obstacle avoidance. An intriguing example of visuomotor coordination is the effect of wing-shaped walls, in which walls are oriented away from or toward a moving agent. A historical story from medieval Japan recounts that wing-shaped walls disrupted the agent's movement more when oriented toward the agent than when oriented away from the agent. This study aimed at examining whether the disruptive effect of wing-shaped walls occurs in a schematic situation represented on a 2D plane. In this study, we conducted psychophysical experiments in which participants were asked to move a stylus from a start point to a goal while avoiding multiple line obstacles that were arranged alternately at a course. In the two experiments, we manipulated the orientation and the size of the visible parts of the obstacles systematically. We found that the obstacles oriented toward the agent produced frequent contacts with the agent and attracted manual movements to the endpoints of obstacles. We discussed possible interpretations of the results in the context of attentional guidance.