Learn Undergraduate Medicine

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Arachnophobia

The Fear of spiders.



Arachnophobia horrifies 33% of the world's population. Sufferers from arachnophobia experience undue anxiety, even though they realize that the risk of encountering a spider and being harmed by it is small or nonexistent. They may avoid going barefoot and may be especially alert when taking showers or getting into and out of bed. Some people scream, cry, experience trouble breathing, sweating or even heart palpitations when they come in contact with an area near spiders or their webs. In some extreme cases, even a picture or a realistic drawing of a spider can also trigger intense fear.

If you have arachnophobia, you will probably go out of your way to ensure that you do not come into contact with a spider. You may wanna burn down your house after you encounter a spider and then lose the sight of it.




Why does Arachnophobia develop?


Experts are still uncertain what causes arachnophobia. There a few theories, though. One of the most common theories was put forth by evolutionary psychologists.
This view suggests that arachnophobia was a survival technique for our ancestors. Since most spiders are venomous, although most do not pose a threat to humans, a fear of spiders may have made humans more likely to survive and reproduce.


 
 
Other psychologists argue that many animals were more likely to pose a threat to ancient humans, from tigers to crocodiles.
Yet phobias of those animals are not that common (33%). Therefore, those psychologists feel that arachnophobia is more likely based on cultural beliefs about the nature of spiders.


Spiders

Despite a third of the population being phobic about the spiders and rest of them usually avoiding the innocent creature minding its business building traps for its flying foods, surprisingly not even a percent of the species present on Earth is poisonous.
More than 43,000 different species of spiders are found in the world. Of these, only a small number are said to be dangerous, and less than 30 (less than one-tenth of one percent) have been responsible for human deaths.
 

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