嬰兒本不怕蛇,恐懼乃外界熏陶

If you're terrified of spiders, or fearful of snakes, then blame your parents. A study challenges the widely held view that we are hard-wired to fear creepy crawlies and instead suggests we learn to be scared of them in the first years of life. Fear of snakes is one of the most common - and in Britain - irrational phobias. Half the population is thought to suffer even though most have never actually seen a snake. Experts at Rutgers University in Newark showed seven-month-old babies two videos side by side – one of a snake and another of a non-threatening animal. At the same time, the babies were played a recording of either a fearful human voice or a happy one.The infants spent more time looking at the snake videos when listening to the fearful voices, but showed no signs of fear themselves, the researchers report in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Past studies have shown that people can be taught to fear almost anything. In one Swedish study, scientists showed volunteers images of snakes, spiders, flowers and mushrooms while giving them a small electric shock. Unsurprisingly, the volunteers learnt to associate all the images with fear. In Britain half of women and a fifth of men are thought to be frightened of spiders, irrespective of whether they are dangerous or not. Many scientists argue that the phobias, exploited by Hollywood movies such as Arachnophobia and Snakes on a Plane, evolved millions of years ago when our ancestors lived alongside a host of deadly reptiles and insects in Africa.