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Fear of animals: What is prepared?
Author(s) -
BennettLevy Jamie,
Marteau Theresa
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1984.tb02787.x
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , preparedness , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , social psychology , neuroscience , law , political science
The present study examines one aspect of the concept of preparedness: what characteristics of animals humans are prepared to fear. Group I subjects ( n = 64) rated how fearful they were of 29 small, harmless animals. Group II subjects ( n = 49) made ratings of the perceptual characteristics of these same animals. Fear ratings were found to be significantly correlated with animal characteristics' ratings. It was suggested that preparedness to fear certain animals (e.g. snakes) is not a function of the animals per se but of their fear‐evoking perceptual properties and their discrepancy from the human form.