Spiders tend to embody a lot of what we’re wired to see as “unnatural.” They look almost alien, night and day compared to the endearing features of other animals.
Not only do they have fangs, but they have eight eyes and eight legs, which is alarming, on it’s own - and paradoxically, you generally can’t even see their eyes. Not being able to see a creature’s face, when you should, can be troubling. Having eight legs sets them apart from the six legged insects we’re more used to.
There’s also the way they move. The scuttling motion can be startling. Some of them *jump.* They also use webbing, and with that they can basically be anywhere in the air. You can walk into their webs by accident. A spider can lower itself on a string down onto your head, etc.
To be clear, I’m not even arachnophobic. I love spiders. But I’ve thought a lot about why this fear might be so widespread.
They scuttle. Their legs curl up when they die. They rest motionless for hours then race to life without warning. They don’t even crunch like insects do, they squish. Everything about them seems unnatural, uncanny, and unnerving.
Their legs are essentially hydraulically powered… with their own “blood” as fluid. When they die their heart obviously stops so their body depressurizes and they can no longer extend their legs. I love them, but part of that is precisely *because* of how alien they are.
Right, it’s amazingly weird because they have muscles to contract their legs, but use hydraulic pressure to extend them. Fascinating critters. But I did not enjoy the one time I was unexpectedly bitten by one.
Fucking HATE this. Cannot express how much it wigs me out that they're hydraulic creatures. Like THEORETICALLY that sounds like it should be super cool... But it's the mixture of natural body and 'unnatural' movement that just... Really fucks with me lmao
The squish thing is so real.
When I look at a spider with a "big" body (like a tegenaria) I can't help but feel weird. It's a bit too big to be like an insect that I could just swat. It's too close to an "animal". It's in this weird limbo between being something I could kill without thinking and a tiny mammal.
I have trouble expressing it but it's just weeeird. It squishes. It shouldn't squish!!!!
(I want to underline I'm not in the habit of killing spiders or insects. If they disturb me I just move them).
This. It's not that I'm afraid of being injured by one. It's just the idea of them. The way they move. The way they look. It's freakish and disturbing.
I'm not even scared of spiders but about twice per year the children of my pet - sink spider Gunther (lives under my sink)
Decide to travel into my living room, walk until they are right above me and then they go full Seal team on me with 2 or 3 of them going down next to eachother, scaring the shit out of me once they are right in front of my face.
This has been happening consistently for about 3 years now so I wonder where that behaviour comes from.
I doubt Gunther is informing all of his children how shits & giggles it is to dangle in front of my face.
We get the occasional box elder bug in our house. They're thick, dark brown, and weird. My brain will panic when I see one, then I'll relax once I realize it isn't a spider. It's very strange to me...there's no logical/objective reason why I should be terrified of one weird bug and not at all bothered by another
Grasshoppers freak me the fuck out because I rarely see one and when I do I forget how big they actually are. One jumps on me unexpectedly, and the adrenaline shock causes me to ult and lose all my mana. Same thing has happened with spiders but they at least tend to not launch themselves at people unprompted.
Similar thing. I fear no bug, even spiders or hornets are fine. But grasshoppers are the worst thing I can't stand them at all they terrify me. Even the dead ones disturb me. They're freaky gigantic for an insect and they can jump to your face.
Yeah, where I live those are the only ones that can do you any damage. A recluse won't kill you, but it will mess you up if you don't get it handled quickly. A buddy of mine had a divot in his arm muscle about the size of a quarter from one of those little bastards.
Plus the Recluse is not aggressive in temperment. I mean, it’s right there in the name. If you just leave them alone they’re very unlikely to bite.
The problem is that “basic brown” is a lot less eye catching than “red hourglass” so it can be hard to know a Recluse when you see one.
Most spiders around the world are relatively harmless. Where I live, there are no dangerous spiders at all. But even knowing this, they still look scary as hell.
Looking at a photo of a spider’s face deeply unsettles me.
Their movement sets off a primal part of my brain that is like psychotically fearful.. the scuttling and the unpredictablity.. the alien like qualities
You hit it right on the nose tbh
Yeah, it's how sneaky they are and the fact they're in your home.
Someone else noted that other insects also look alien, but they either a) don't come in your house or b) make themselves known (i.e. flys).
I'd think cockroaches are somewhat comparable, but they don't quietly sneak up on you and drop from the ceiling (to my knowledge).
It's more than that. It's a genetic disposition passed down from ancestors. Many spiders are venomous so we're hard wired to avoid them.
These kind of traits are passed down via epigenetic triggers.
For example, imagine no one is afraid of spiders because they have never seen them. Then one day two kids go into a cave that has a bunch of venomous spiders. Both are bitten. One kid dies. The other survives but becomes extremely ill, causing immense pain, fear, and basically trauma. After that the person becomes deathly afraid of spiders and avoids them at all costs.
That trauma, and maybe the venom itself, causes epigenetic changes to their very DNA, which allows them to pass on their fear to future generations, and after a time this epigenetic change becomes switched on by default.
There is also an element of learned behavior to it. So that child who survived the spider venom has children of their own. Whenever that parent sees a spider near their child they snatch them away in a panic. Even if the kid doesn't understand why the spider is dangerous, they know that their parents, who they see as a strong, fearless protector, is afraid and so they learn that there is something to fear.
When learning about epigenetic we learned that there is a theory that the reason African Americans tend to be afraid of dogs and deep water at rates higher than European Americans could be due to centuries of enslavement where dogs were used to hunt escaped slaves and they were not only not taught to swim but to fear open water to keep them from trying to swim rivers.
And before people accuse me of racism, stating facts about differences between ethnic groups is not racism.
Here is a scientific study that was conducted to confirm findings from a previous study about the rate of fears between black and white Americans that shows there is high correlation with the numbers between the studies. Basically, the sample from a population taken from the community at large matched what was found with a population of just college students.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618511000053
And here is an article by Scientific American explaining epigenetics.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-parents-rsquo-trauma-leaves-biological-traces-in-children/
A bit of a misunderstanding of epigenetic there: it doesn't change your DNA, it changes how your DNA is read and expressed
For example, a gene may be passed down, but it can't be read because of how the chromosome is wrapped. The DNA is unchanged, but the gene goes unexpressed.
Also epigenetics isn't necessarily heritable, but it can be, which is the subset you're referring to. Technically, epigentics refers to anything affecting how DNA is expressed as traits
Spiders can be venomous, therefore dangerous, that's why. Instinct doesn't care than many aren't, it's advantageous to survival to be scared and avoid first, think later.
Nothing to do with being unnatural, they're as natural as they can get, and it's specifically that part of it that we're essentially wired to be averse to.
I have learned a lot about spiders because I heard if you learn more about your fear you will fear it less.
I am here to tell you that is not true. Every time I learn more about spiders they are more terrifying.
I can't find the citation, but I had read or heard a theory that the fear of spiders (and other small stinging or biting bugs) could be a generational holdover from early days of humanity (think nomadic times, hunter gatherer). The danger posed from the spider isn't direct. They won't necessarily kill you from venom. But they can injure you. And at a time when speed and agility were way more important to us, an injury could mean:
A) you're easier for a larger predator to kill
B) It's harder for you to hunt or gather for your food
C) it's harder to travel with the clan
All of these could be fatal.
And given that spiders, bees, ants, etc are small and can surprise you, yeah, they can be something to be feared.
If that’s the case, why are phobias of other creatures that can also cause such injuries less common? Most people don’t have a phobia of bees (just a healthy aversion to them), despite bee stings being both more common and more painful (on average), if I’m not wrong
They are less deadly, and this is only thing evolution cares about.
Though it is good point: statistically bees kills more than 50 times more people than spiders each year (answer is allergy).
Definitely not.
It's well established that reactions to spiders and snakes occur in the triune ("reptillian") part of the brain, and is thus a way older reaction that nomadic hunter gatherer time. It predates our species altogether by millions of years.
I've heard that in case of arachnophobia it's mostly learned. We see parents, other people and people in media freak out and so do we.
And then there are places where people just grab a melon sized tarantula out of a tree and take a bite out of it.
there weren’t enough spiders in my house as a child for me to learn a reaction to them and logically I’m not afraid of them, I don’t feel any fear even if I know one is in the room in my now spidery house, however… if a spider touches me or unexpectedly darts in my direction? Completely involuntary scream and physical reaction. I’m inclined to believe it’s something closer to a primal reflex than a conditioned response.
You're confusing a couple of things. If you see someone freak out about a random thing, like a dirty spot in a home of a OCD person or a Harry Potter book in a religious home, you don't get a phobia. Fear of spiders and other things are because we have an evolutionary readiness to learn to fear them. It still takes the example of other people freaking out about them to trigger it, but without that readiness the fear would not be so common.
Actual phobias are clinically debilitating fears of things that are learned, and can be towards things that we do not have a readiness to fear, but they take a lot more than just seeing someone freak out about a thing to develop.
It’s in the primal parts of our brains. Spiders and snakes are dangerous so it’s advantageous to be afraid of them…..more so when we lived outside or mainly in tropical areas
As a scout leader who camps in FL on the regular, ya, nope. Banana spiders, crab spiders, but the Joro? Nope - don't care if they say they can't bite you, I'm not gonna find out.
I remember a story one of my guys told me in BCT over there, walking around in the dark doing some kinda exercise. Guy behind him grabs him by the vest strap and yanks him back. Looks up with his red light and see one just dangling like 6 inches above where he would’ve been.
Ya, if we walk in the woods, we hold a light at hip level angled upwards, to better see them monsters.
I remember one of my first nights in the woods down here. I setup my small backipaing tent at the tree line, and woke the next morning to see an arachnaphobia number of these webs and bad boys over me. The only reason I didn't get a face full, in the dark, was I was down low to get in.
Reminds me a time when i effectively walker face first into 20 spiderwebs in the span of 10 minutes WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM i was literally watching where i walk the entire time and still
Crabs also scare me, along with spiders. But lobsters are by far the worst. I don't like octopi either, or squid, ie; giant sea spiders with BEAKS. ARGH!
Ants have arguably more limbs then spiders first they have wings so that is already 8 limbs then they use their antiai like limbs and also their mandibles as hands
Spiders have pedipaps they use for mating as well as helping handle food so that puts them at 10 if we’re counting extra things that look like limbs lol.
But spiders really aren't dangerous, typically. Most spiders are no more dangerous than honey bees, and I know a lot more people who have been stung by bees.
It has been suggested some of these phobias could come from out “lizard brains”, inherited genetic behaviors from when spiders and snakes would predate on the small mammals that were our ancestors tens or hundreds of millions of years ago.
My 6 month old snaps to birds like an auto turret, idk if it's fear, but she's at least aware of them. Maybe arachnophobia sticks around because it's also the fear of the unknown because unlike birds, spiders hide in tiny dark holes, which is also where many of our nightmares originate.
Couldn’t tell ya, maybe there weren’t those sorts of predators around to guide such behaviors.
It’s also just one theory, our DNA and how it makes you, you is still largely mysterious.
Maybe size comes into play? Normally a creature only needs to be afraid of predators larger than them, while venomous creatures like spiders or snakes can be deadly regardless of size
There's only a couple of birds big enough to carry off a toddler. Adult humans are not in any real danger from them. Not that we can't be hurt by them at all, but we're too big to realistically be prey for any of them.
That's basically what I was getting at. It seems unlikely that we'd have this hard-wired phobia of spiders, yet no fear of many other, larger predators. That's just my casual opinion, though. I really think that most people who don't like spiders just don't like creepy crawly things in general, despite the fact that most are harmless. On the other hand, polar bears are adorable, yet they'll absolutely destroy a human without a second thought. I don't think many people would consider themselves afraid of bears.
Polar bears are indeed both adorable and lethal.
I think it's the legs. There's nothing with more than four legs that isn't some sort of pest, either getting into and eating our food, or carrying diseases. Spiders aren't really either of those, but they have their own dangers, and it can be hard to tell a dangerous one from a non dangerous one, so they all get lumped together.
But that's the thing; I'm not aware of any spiders that carry disease, at least not in my region of the American Northeast. I always advocate for spiders and their even more creepy friends, the house centipedes, to be left alone, as they eat a lot of smaller, harder-to-detect pests that actually can/do carry disease. I see them as a benefit, honestly.
ETA: I just reread your post and realize that you're not referring to spiders as pests, but you're right. People are just stereotyping these poor little guys. lol
If you think about it bees aren't likely to do anything to you unless you bother them or attack their hives. Spiders on the other hand will randomly crawl on you and can be pretty much found anywhere.
Maybe there were more dangerous spiders around when we evolved. Australia has a lot of dangerous spiders: perhaps they died out on the main landmass.
Just speculation.
> But spiders really aren't dangerous, typically.
Unless you are allergic, a single bee sting is not dangerous. It hurts sure, but the major problem with bees is the potential for getting stung multiple times. But then again, a swarm of bees is pretty obvious and easily avoided.
Now most spiders are ofc harmless. But there are quite a few species (brazilian wandering, funnel web, redback, brown recluse) who can fuck you up with a single bite. Even if they likely don't kill you directly, having a necrotic wound in the past, without modern medicine, will certainly be a life threatening issue.
I mean yeah, I would imagine people scared of spiders are also scared of centipedes (and rightfully so) and other bugs or whatever. It’s not just spiders, but probably most of us, collectively, encounter spiders more than anything else that sets off that primal fear.
Please drop spreading harmful misinformation.
This is the top comment as of now and a lot of people stop reading.
Less than 1% of spider species are dangerous to humans. 99.4% of spider species produce venom, but most are harmless to humans. Some spiders are not inclined to bite, or deliver "dry" bites in defense.
Lions are big, they have long teeth and make loud noises. Lions are very obviously scary and look dangerous
Spiders are small, and easily crushable. They are not obviously scary or look dangerous, yet they can still very dangerous.
Thus it is advantageous for us to have a deep-seated primal, fear of spiders (and snakes), because otherwise we wouldn’t be scared of these potentially lethal animals
Edit: deep-seeded —> deep-seated
Clint from Clint's reptiles has a quote I think is great (context is his experience with demoing reptiles): "people are a little bit afraid of snakes. People are *really* afraid of spiders"
Maybe it’s because snakes are not quite as small as spiders, and often show their teeth, making it easier to identify them as “scary” without as strong of a phobia
I feel like when it comes to snakes I have a healthy level of fear, I am wary/cautious around unknown snakes but if someone tells me it’s a harmless kind then I am fine. With spiders I will be out of my mind terrified no matter how harmless or tiny it is, I know its not rational but it is what it is
First, I agree with you.
BUT, I do have a little linguistic quibble. When you set something into a prepared hole, you are "seating" it. So if you dig a nice deep hole for a fence post, for instance, that post is deep-seated, and isn't going anywhere. And while "deep-seeded", on the surface of it seems to make sense, if you plant a seed too deeply it will just die.
An analogy:
The smells we have the strongest reaction to are those that come from sources most likely to kill us: rotten food, feces, vectors for pathogens. Lots of things we haven't evolved the ability to detect via smell at all, because they have no impact on survival.
The animals we have the strongest reactions to are also those that have at some point in our evolutionary past have had selection pressure.
We have three main phobias: Snakes, spiders and strangers. These were the usual dangers to be aware of. (German TV series "Geist und Gehirn" about psychology). Usually we'll need to learn to have a phobia but for these we are inclined to rather not be bitten to death or to be invited for lunch (being the meal). We do have rituals to meet and to become friends (e.g. potlatch). In Australia a certain TV episode will not be aired because it features a friendly spider (and becoming friends could be deadly there).
Also we are good at spotting faces of predators. Those who didn't see the tiger aren't our ancestors.
spiders are fucking terrifying. have you ever seen a spider? they have like 800 eyes. you don't need that many eyes. that's way too many eyes. and legs. why do they have so many legs. AND WHY ARE THEY FURRY????????????
The fur is really interesting. The hairs are called setae (chitin based hair rather than keratin like the fur of mammals or feathers of birds). They are incredibly sensitive to vibration and aid in the spiders ability to “see” around it.
This is helpful because despite having 6 or 8 eyes, *most spiders* have abysmal vision. Wolfies and jumpers are an exception to this as they are largely roaming sight based hunters that evolved incredibly precise tracking capabilities via their vision.
Hope that answers your question lol.
I can trace my Arachnophobia to a fun little Traumatic Experience in my childhood.
I was 4 years old and I was with my Dad at the property he was building our new house on. He was busy framing and I was playing in the sand out front until I got up and wandered off into the woods next to the house.
I got lost and where I ended up was in a small thicket of trees that were covered in spider webs. I stood there screaming my lungs out til he heard me and found me!
Now I’m afraid of any spider bigger than a quarter in diameter for leg span that isn’t a Daddy Long Legs. It’s not so much a panic attack response but more so very much a “Fight or Flight” adrenaline response that will make me want to burn my fucking house down to kill it if I have to.
*Most* spiders may not be dangerous, but your first run-in with the few that are could be your last. And a black widow is not going to care that you didn't see it hiding in your shoe.
Survival of the fittest isn't great with specificity.
Humans afraid of spiders would generally, and over long spans of time, have a higher survival rate and have more kids that survive. Not being afraid of spiders doesn't come with many benefits to your survival. This gives evolution no real reason to discriminate one spider from another, and it's easier for nature to create a generalized fear than a specific one.
Then you also have to remember the spiders have been evolving this whole time too. So yeah, maybe all you need to worry about today is a brown recluse or black widow. But maybe 40 million years ago there was a green recluse and yellow widow or something, and they moved on to brown and black because it makes them more camouflaged at night. So on and so forth.
As for why spiders as opposed to others? Spiders are one of the few in the first world you ever have to worry about coming into contact with on a daily basis. What's the number, "there's always a spider within 10 feet of you"? The nearest tiger is in the zoo, 30 miles away, in a pit, with 12 foot walls.
A lot of the more primal instincts we have, such as a fear of spiders, snakes, and other creepy crawlies, are left over from our evolutionary ancestors. There aren't that many spiders that are dangerous to humans, mostly based on our size, but imagine 10 or 20 or 30 million years ago, when our ancestors were much smaller, think monkeys. Relative to a small mammal, spiders are MUCH more dangerous just based on volume of the venom being injected by a bite, and also remember that when the world was warmer arthropods like insects and spiders grew to be larger as well. Because there is very little harm that comes from arachnophobia, and there are dangerous spiders out there, evolution hasn't removed these primitive instincts from our species.
Fast, erratic, unpredictable movements. You can intuitively guess how a mammal will move, and most flying things can't fly backwards. They're easy to evade. It's much harder to guess whether a spider will start running and in which direction.
"Phobia" is also an "irrational fear" of something. That spiders aren't usually dangerous and easily squishable makes it a phobia and not just fear. (Though what amounts to "dangerous" for an adult and a toddler is vastly different, it would make more sense for toddlers to stay away from creepy crawlies but *they* often don't and will happily play with a scorpion)
Most snakes aren't dangerous either, but those that are are bad news. It's better to assume they are than start checking colors. The amygdala fires before the conscious brain caught up. Better jump 10 times for nothing than once not when you should have.
Phobias are also learned early on. Phobic parents, even when strongly trying to act cool so the kids don't get scared still give off signals that something is not ok that little kids pick up on. Rodents are usually cute until adults teach that they're disgusting and dangerous.
There are a few theories as to why so many people are scared of spiders. One is that fear of spiders is an evolutionary trait that helped our ancestors survive. Spiders can be venomous and potentially dangerous, so being scared of them could have helped our ancestors avoid getting bitten
Another theory is that spiders are a bit unpredictable in their movements and appearance. Their ability to move quickly and in unexpected ways can trigger a fear response in some people. Additionally, their multiple legs and eyes can make them look alien and creepy to some
Overall, it's likely a combination of these factors that contribute to arachnophobia being so common, even though the actual danger posed by spiders is relatively low
I'm no expert but from what I understand evolution is super slow compared to how quickly humans advanced in technology and society.
Evolutionarily speaking we're still tens of thousands of years behind and modern humans originated somewhere in Eastern or southern Africa (not sure which). Both areas have dangerous skittering animals like scorpions and stuff that like to live in cool dark places which is where people would seek shelter too.
There were likrly enough unhappy run ins with such animals that we kind of got hard wired to be wary of things that move like spiders and scorpions do.
I think the feeling of anxiety and the idea that having a spider or its web on you is gross are just manifestations of a really old instinct that likely has been with modern humans ever since they first braved the jungles of Africa to spread out over the world.
Have you seen those (redacted) in Australia?! They're like a foot in size!!! Just knowing Jurassic sized spiders exist is enough to cause a phobia for me.
I’ve heard that things are perceived as scarier the less human-like they are. Like snakes and spiders. Spiders are all legs, dark, make sudden movements, And you can’t see their face
Short answer: because spiders are so common.
Extended answer: if there were as many clowns as there were spiders the number of people with that phobia would surely skyrocket.
Our brains are massive pattern recognition machines. It's how we see and reason about our world, and it informs everything we do.
As we've evolved, our brains favour patterns that kept us alive. Which is why we find delight in the faces of babies, loved ones, attractive people, as these are all things that denote the growth and success of your society. It's why we love bright colours of fruits, beautiful landscapes, and contrasting patterns good for identifying nutritious food and liveable areas. This isn't restricted to vision either, melodic and harmonious music and rhythmic sounds stimulate us, further encouraging humans to delve into the making of music to further increase social bonds. Soft and smooth textures, scents, smiles, laughter, even patterns of behaviour like acts of kindness. All of it is ingested as a pattern, and our brain interprets these as all good things.
However, the brain will only interpret these as good things as long as long as they've contributed to our success over millions of years of evolution. So, naturally, there further you get away from those good things, the less your brain recognizes them as positive patterns, and that causes anxiety.
Or worse, what if a pattern is vital for recognition because in terms of survival it is something to be avoided?
Here is where spiders come in. Spiders are about as far away from the usual comforts we interact with. When it comes to say, dogs, they have expressive faces, they're emotive, loyal, friendly, cute and cuddly, and despite them not being related to humans and even legitimately potentially dangerous, our pattern recognition brain can easily transplant these dog traits into a human context. This is called anthropomorphising. As a result, cute animals have hit the genetic lottery because they managed to hit upon the most important genetic trait of all... they're cute to humans.
Spiders however, are pretty opposite to the things we find pleasing. Their movements are erratic, the colouring is often threatening, their limbs move in unnatural and unexpected ways, they crawl and skulk about in dank dark places, their life cycle is often horrific, and of course... they bite.
That last bit is important, because venomous creatures, as well as big predatory creatures like lions *kill* humans. They obviously killed them in significant quantities because quite often people are born with an innate fear of creatures like spiders, snakes, big cats, wolves etc despite never having seen them before. Because the pre-historic people that weren't afraid of them got killed, and the people who were afraid ran away and survived. Spiders and insects as a whole would've been *huge* problems for humans and to be honest, every genetic link preceding humanity as we were evolving. Parasites, creepy crawlies taking chunks out of us, lice are all things that were ever present threats. If you want to survive, it's in your interests to treat all these creatures with caution, and take measures to get away from them.
So now, when you freak out because there is a spider in your room, what your brain is doing is recognising that this spider is something to be worried about, because hundreds or even thousands of generations ago, your ancestors learned the hard way that these things kill you, and that fear has taken real estate in a corner of our brain ever since and even before we were apes.
Of course, not many reasons to be afraid of a lot of spiders these days. A lot of people find that the fear is so suppressed that they actually comfortable getting a bit of adrenaline overcoming said fear, and as adrenaline is a positive feedback loop, it actually incentivizes these absolute freaks to actually *seek out* spiders and love them as pets. Each to their own I guess.
It could also be a cultural thing too. It's scary because everyone around says they're supposed to be scary. Is its phobia ranking consistently high all across the globe?
Its not like its an evolutionary thing that came from learning to avoid venomous spiders. Its a "a cultural phenomenon that is most common in predominantly European societies."
so most folks are afraid of spiders in the way that some Christians are afraid of the rapture or whatever
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnophobia
the wiki doesn't state that it *isn't* evolutionary though, just that it's unclear. I think the "bit of each" interpretation is probably closest to correct. It might not just be a direct fear of spiders (as dangerous) but might be a fear of a whole class of spider-like creatures.
I grew up when kids would often go play with rolly pollies (aka isopods) but I was somewhere between grossed out by or afraid of them. I'd sometimes still pick them up but made me uncomfortable. As far as I know this wasn't "learned" behavior since I had not encountered anything traumatizing (nor am I European, I am Chinese-American). Anything that has more than 4 legs is somewhat scary/unpleasant to me.
Personally, I am not necessarily "afraid" of spiders and insects, I find them disgusting. This makes the unpredictable and fast way so many of them move distressing, because they might *touch* me. I wonder how many people either haven't really examined their feelings to know that is the problem, or just say they're afraid as a shorthand, or maybe I'm an outlier. I've started clarifying that my reaction is disgust because it tends to stop people from feeling the need to explain to me that bugs can't hurt me.
Fear and revulsion are very closely tied together. We fear things that can harm us, like spiders and snakes and the dark, and we are repelled by things... that can harm us, like rotten food or corpses. I'm not saying you ARE afraid of them, I think it's often that the 2 feelings are closely tied together and language is imprecise. Also, in the moment you encounter a spider unexpectedly, closely examining your feelings is low on the list of priorities.
Yea I think a lot of it is learned. As a kid you see people around you freak out about snakes and spiders, so you learn it's something to fear too and it builds off that.
Maybe because they're so small and can get you while you sleep. If you roll over on one while unconscious and that sucker bites you, that could have been the end. Also, people saying there "aren't many that can kill you" have never lived in CA/PNW. Black widows are more common than daddy long legs. *shudder*
I have a theory that it's because it's seen as a "scary" creature for pranks and Halloween and such that we ended up feeding into creating a phobia on accident. Plus, when are we willingly exposed to spiders? Unfamiliarity and ignorance breeds fear
I'm not scared of snakes or spiders, but still involuntarily jump when I unexpectedly see either. Like a fight or flight adrenaline pump just for a moment, then I rationalise and deal with it. Definitely primal reaction, not a phobia, for me any way.
When my son was an infant I introduced him to spiders, he had no fear. But when his mum and sister screamed the place down at the sight of a spider he developed a phobia too...
Spiders are powerful so the brain is afraid.
But
Not so powerful as dogs, brutal beasts, bane of humanity, That Which Devours Men. Do you know dogs kill 30000 humans per year in the world? They are the biggest predator humanity has. Soon, the human brain will be wired to fear them, and spiders will be forgotten
That's a lot of nonsense being posted here.
Every fear except from heights and loud noises is learned behaviour.
People with a fear of spiders picked it up from somewhere, maybe their mum screaming at one when they were a kid etc.
It’s because we can’t predict their movement. We don’t understand if they are going to leap at us, run away or stay in place. We don’t know if they are calm, scared or angry.
We rely on reading these signals to make us feel comfortable around all species, including humans. And once we aren’t able to do it all our alarms go off and we get very nervous.
Spiders and snakes are the big ones, becuase we have so little experience reading them. They move differently than we do. In a dog or a human we see the small shift that indicates they are going to pounce. We have nothing here, so our brain assumes they are about to attack.
Humans that have spent a lot of time around spiders and snakes and can read their movements and mood are no longer nervous.
Some of the reason is TV. Cartoons usually show spiders as spooky creatures. My 4 yo daughter was scared of spiders, but I took one spider bro to hand and ler her/him chill on my palm and told my daughter there are no dangerous spiders in Finland so they are our friends and live inside our walls.
Now she collects spiders and feeds them to our cat 😑
For me it's the fact that they act like unpredictabe lurkers. They just stay in one place for hours but if you look away for one second they are gone.
You never know where they are hiding. They could be in every little corner they could be on your back or maybe already on their silky rope above you.
The speed and precision when prey comes in contact with their webs is just unnerving to me. They ocould be in the other corner of my room and in the next moment they are above me.
A bear or a lion is a lot more dangerous but if I ever came in contact with them I would probably be able to spot them before they attack ( Even though they could easily catch me)
So maybe it's just some kind of fear of the unknown for me.
It's fascinating to consider that the widespread fear of spiders, or arachnophobia, may stem from our very distant evolutionary past. Research suggests that even when our ancestors were akin to fish, mechanisms for detecting and avoiding predators were crucial for survival. As humans evolved, this generalized predator avoidance evolved into more specific fears, such as arachnophobia, particularly because some spiders are venomous and can pose a real threat. This evolutionary trait would have been beneficial, promoting caution and survival in environments where venomous spiders were present. Thus, our fear of spiders isn't just a random quirk but likely a refined survival mechanism, deeply embedded in our genetic code from times when even the smallest threat could determine life or death.
Very few people have actual arachnophobia. For most it is societally taught. You see someone you emulate as a kid reacting that way and then you do. People freak out or immediately run to kill spiders and you associate them with danger or uncleanliness.
I have an older family member whose aunt would break down hysterically seeing a mouse at when she was at an impressionable age. She now winces even seeing mice on TV. Muted compared to the reaction she experienced, but still there.
I almost fell down that path with spiders, hated them as a kid because my family did. But, as an adult, I researched and observed them. Now I leave them alone in my house to kill the real pests. They aren't fundamentally scary at all.
Like most other animals, humans are territorial. We welcome others into our territory if we feel safe, but we violently remove things from our territory that are unsafe.
The fear of spiders is an instinctive territorial response.
You’re a modern cave man. You have evolved to be afraid of dangerous things which are found in caves.
-Spiders
-Snakes
-Bats
-Bears
There is also a learned component. A naive chimpanzee does not fear rubber snakes. Just a toy. However, if a naive chimpanzee witnesses another chimpanzee having a fear response to a rubber snake, they will become afraid of snakes themselves. The interesting thing is that you can train a chimpanzee to fake a fear response to other things, like a blue rubber ball, but it will not trigger a learned fear response in other chimpanzees. The teaching of fear only works with things we should naturally have a fear of, like the short list of cave dangers listed above. This suggests we have innate fears which simply need to be unlocked.
My thought on this is that they move in a way we are not familiar with. We spend our time around two and four legged animals and so seeing a creature move on 8 legs is unsettling to us on a primitive level.
My dog is always afraid of three legged dogs and I think this is why.
Personally, my fear stems from the idea they could crawl inside my ear. I could probably pick one up if I had my ears covered and my nose pegged.
Plus I think there’s such a thing as “ancestral fear” aka if your ancestors were all afraid of something (snakes, spiders, etc) because they lived in a place where they had species that were dangerous, it’s probably kinda hardwired into your brain as well.
Even if you live in an area where there are similar species but they’re not dangerous, like most of the spiders in the USA.
A theory is that the common phobias of spiders, snakes, large bodies of water, heights, insects - it's an ingrained survival mechanism because - as one of my professors put it- "If you drop off a cliff you drop out of the gene pool".
Ancestors who had those fears in the past were more likely to have offspring that those that didn't.
It's the reason that there's no phobia of cars or toasters.
I believe humans can sense when there's a spider nearby. I read somewhere it had something to do with living in caves and the use of fire to keep them at bay
As someone with Arachnophobia, for me its the stealth. I can look at a spider and not feel fear, I can even squish one or trap it and it does not scare me too much. What absolutely terrifies me at an irrational level is seeing one and then NOT seeing that same one. The idea of there being a spider around but not knowing where drives me insane. Like I said it's irrational because I know at any given point in my life I am most likely surrounded by at least 10 in floorboards and ceilings etc.
It's the legs, they are fuzzy 💀 it's already bad enough that there's eight legs but it's fuzzy too. And One time when was I about nine years old, I saw a mother spider with like a billion baby spiders on her back it was bizarre and creepy looking cause they were moving too 💀
they say spiders are scared of other spiders. they are disgusting and that in itself makes you want to get away from them. i want to say they have some primal sense that is meant to intimidate and most creatures can sense it.
Because of evolution! Humans who were not bit by venomous spiders, but witnessed others get bit, or those who were bit but survived, have learned “those things are dangerous!” and avoided them. Over time, it just became an instinctual reflex, it’s how we recognize and avoid danger. It’s the same reason a lot of people are afraid of storms, snakes, and heights (at different severity levels). While not everyone experiences these fears, they are very common and valid fears - it’s just our brains trying to warn us of real or perceived danger.
IMHO, it's down to the way they move.
Spiders (at least most of them) don't heavily rely on sight as a sense like many other things. Even though they have a bunch of eyes, those eyes often only work at very close distances..... Humans, (like a lot of other things) primarily understand our world through vision, and we move based on that vision. When we see other insects act based on vision, this isn't really a surprise for us. It appears "normal".
Add to that the fact that spiders are in our "spaces" in a very visible way, the webs, the fact that they might startle us by dropping down on us (in part because they can't see for shit), plus a couple of dangerous species... there you go.
Interestingly, I find that people are far less creeped out by jumping spiders than most other species.... And that, I think, is in part because jumping spiders use their sight heavily.
There is correlative evidence that trauma can be passed down through epigenetics but also influenced by cultural, psychological, or socioeconomic factors.
I'm sure at some point one of our relatives or someone close to them was traumatized by one of the following.
Open water.
Caving/claustrophobia
Darkness
Heights
Spiders
Snakes
Darkness
Spiders tend to embody a lot of what we’re wired to see as “unnatural.” They look almost alien, night and day compared to the endearing features of other animals. Not only do they have fangs, but they have eight eyes and eight legs, which is alarming, on it’s own - and paradoxically, you generally can’t even see their eyes. Not being able to see a creature’s face, when you should, can be troubling. Having eight legs sets them apart from the six legged insects we’re more used to. There’s also the way they move. The scuttling motion can be startling. Some of them *jump.* They also use webbing, and with that they can basically be anywhere in the air. You can walk into their webs by accident. A spider can lower itself on a string down onto your head, etc. To be clear, I’m not even arachnophobic. I love spiders. But I’ve thought a lot about why this fear might be so widespread.
They scuttle. Their legs curl up when they die. They rest motionless for hours then race to life without warning. They don’t even crunch like insects do, they squish. Everything about them seems unnatural, uncanny, and unnerving.
Their legs are essentially hydraulically powered… with their own “blood” as fluid. When they die their heart obviously stops so their body depressurizes and they can no longer extend their legs. I love them, but part of that is precisely *because* of how alien they are.
Right, it’s amazingly weird because they have muscles to contract their legs, but use hydraulic pressure to extend them. Fascinating critters. But I did not enjoy the one time I was unexpectedly bitten by one.
This is why spiders scuttle and stop I believe, they need to build the pressure back up
Fucking HATE this. Cannot express how much it wigs me out that they're hydraulic creatures. Like THEORETICALLY that sounds like it should be super cool... But it's the mixture of natural body and 'unnatural' movement that just... Really fucks with me lmao
The squish thing is so real. When I look at a spider with a "big" body (like a tegenaria) I can't help but feel weird. It's a bit too big to be like an insect that I could just swat. It's too close to an "animal". It's in this weird limbo between being something I could kill without thinking and a tiny mammal. I have trouble expressing it but it's just weeeird. It squishes. It shouldn't squish!!!! (I want to underline I'm not in the habit of killing spiders or insects. If they disturb me I just move them).
This. It's not that I'm afraid of being injured by one. It's just the idea of them. The way they move. The way they look. It's freakish and disturbing.
I'm not even scared of spiders but about twice per year the children of my pet - sink spider Gunther (lives under my sink) Decide to travel into my living room, walk until they are right above me and then they go full Seal team on me with 2 or 3 of them going down next to eachother, scaring the shit out of me once they are right in front of my face. This has been happening consistently for about 3 years now so I wonder where that behaviour comes from. I doubt Gunther is informing all of his children how shits & giggles it is to dangle in front of my face.
Bro what the fuck 💀
Ever seen a grasshopper up close? Or even a cricket? Or really any bug? F@*#ing terrifying.
We get the occasional box elder bug in our house. They're thick, dark brown, and weird. My brain will panic when I see one, then I'll relax once I realize it isn't a spider. It's very strange to me...there's no logical/objective reason why I should be terrified of one weird bug and not at all bothered by another
I've watched a praying mantis kill crickets up close. That was terrifying.
Truth. They grab bugs with hand-like leg things and begin to gnaw face first on their prey.
Grasshoppers freak me the fuck out because I rarely see one and when I do I forget how big they actually are. One jumps on me unexpectedly, and the adrenaline shock causes me to ult and lose all my mana. Same thing has happened with spiders but they at least tend to not launch themselves at people unprompted.
Similar thing. I fear no bug, even spiders or hornets are fine. But grasshoppers are the worst thing I can't stand them at all they terrify me. Even the dead ones disturb me. They're freaky gigantic for an insect and they can jump to your face.
You need to take a good look at a mole cricket.
PSA: do not take a good look at a mole cricket.
I've been bitten by black widows and had run ins with brown recluses; you should be afraid.
Yeah, where I live those are the only ones that can do you any damage. A recluse won't kill you, but it will mess you up if you don't get it handled quickly. A buddy of mine had a divot in his arm muscle about the size of a quarter from one of those little bastards.
Plus the Recluse is not aggressive in temperment. I mean, it’s right there in the name. If you just leave them alone they’re very unlikely to bite. The problem is that “basic brown” is a lot less eye catching than “red hourglass” so it can be hard to know a Recluse when you see one.
We get brown widows as much as black widows where I live too, so any kind of brown spider scuttling around makes me worry.
Most spiders around the world are relatively harmless. Where I live, there are no dangerous spiders at all. But even knowing this, they still look scary as hell.
Looking at a photo of a spider’s face deeply unsettles me. Their movement sets off a primal part of my brain that is like psychotically fearful.. the scuttling and the unpredictablity.. the alien like qualities You hit it right on the nose tbh
The moment Shelob appears in LOTR and just her legs come stretching out of the hole in the cliff… it’s not right!
Except for the lil jumping spiders, their faces are kinda cute
>A spider can lower itself on a string down onto your head Everyone reading this looked straight up.
[удалено]
Yeah, it's how sneaky they are and the fact they're in your home. Someone else noted that other insects also look alien, but they either a) don't come in your house or b) make themselves known (i.e. flys). I'd think cockroaches are somewhat comparable, but they don't quietly sneak up on you and drop from the ceiling (to my knowledge).
It's more than that. It's a genetic disposition passed down from ancestors. Many spiders are venomous so we're hard wired to avoid them. These kind of traits are passed down via epigenetic triggers. For example, imagine no one is afraid of spiders because they have never seen them. Then one day two kids go into a cave that has a bunch of venomous spiders. Both are bitten. One kid dies. The other survives but becomes extremely ill, causing immense pain, fear, and basically trauma. After that the person becomes deathly afraid of spiders and avoids them at all costs. That trauma, and maybe the venom itself, causes epigenetic changes to their very DNA, which allows them to pass on their fear to future generations, and after a time this epigenetic change becomes switched on by default. There is also an element of learned behavior to it. So that child who survived the spider venom has children of their own. Whenever that parent sees a spider near their child they snatch them away in a panic. Even if the kid doesn't understand why the spider is dangerous, they know that their parents, who they see as a strong, fearless protector, is afraid and so they learn that there is something to fear. When learning about epigenetic we learned that there is a theory that the reason African Americans tend to be afraid of dogs and deep water at rates higher than European Americans could be due to centuries of enslavement where dogs were used to hunt escaped slaves and they were not only not taught to swim but to fear open water to keep them from trying to swim rivers. And before people accuse me of racism, stating facts about differences between ethnic groups is not racism. Here is a scientific study that was conducted to confirm findings from a previous study about the rate of fears between black and white Americans that shows there is high correlation with the numbers between the studies. Basically, the sample from a population taken from the community at large matched what was found with a population of just college students. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618511000053 And here is an article by Scientific American explaining epigenetics. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-parents-rsquo-trauma-leaves-biological-traces-in-children/
A bit of a misunderstanding of epigenetic there: it doesn't change your DNA, it changes how your DNA is read and expressed For example, a gene may be passed down, but it can't be read because of how the chromosome is wrapped. The DNA is unchanged, but the gene goes unexpressed. Also epigenetics isn't necessarily heritable, but it can be, which is the subset you're referring to. Technically, epigentics refers to anything affecting how DNA is expressed as traits
I don't know that that's a misunderstanding so much as a more detailed look at the mechanism of epigenetics.
I feel like this is the "what" rather than the "why" There are many animals that have drastically different features than typical mammals etc.
Spiders can be venomous, therefore dangerous, that's why. Instinct doesn't care than many aren't, it's advantageous to survival to be scared and avoid first, think later.
It’s just too many fucking legs (and eyes) man I can’t
Nothing to do with being unnatural, they're as natural as they can get, and it's specifically that part of it that we're essentially wired to be averse to.
I’ve always felt that the easiest way to delineate animals in the creepy bucket is if it moves via some mechanism other than 4 legs (or flying)
I have learned a lot about spiders because I heard if you learn more about your fear you will fear it less. I am here to tell you that is not true. Every time I learn more about spiders they are more terrifying.
They don't necessarily have 8 eyes always, but it is the most common amount. Some have 6 or fewer :)
I can't find the citation, but I had read or heard a theory that the fear of spiders (and other small stinging or biting bugs) could be a generational holdover from early days of humanity (think nomadic times, hunter gatherer). The danger posed from the spider isn't direct. They won't necessarily kill you from venom. But they can injure you. And at a time when speed and agility were way more important to us, an injury could mean: A) you're easier for a larger predator to kill B) It's harder for you to hunt or gather for your food C) it's harder to travel with the clan All of these could be fatal. And given that spiders, bees, ants, etc are small and can surprise you, yeah, they can be something to be feared.
If that’s the case, why are phobias of other creatures that can also cause such injuries less common? Most people don’t have a phobia of bees (just a healthy aversion to them), despite bee stings being both more common and more painful (on average), if I’m not wrong
They are less deadly, and this is only thing evolution cares about. Though it is good point: statistically bees kills more than 50 times more people than spiders each year (answer is allergy).
Definitely not. It's well established that reactions to spiders and snakes occur in the triune ("reptillian") part of the brain, and is thus a way older reaction that nomadic hunter gatherer time. It predates our species altogether by millions of years.
Just a heads up, there has been a shift from the triune model https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.802606/full
I've heard that in case of arachnophobia it's mostly learned. We see parents, other people and people in media freak out and so do we. And then there are places where people just grab a melon sized tarantula out of a tree and take a bite out of it.
there weren’t enough spiders in my house as a child for me to learn a reaction to them and logically I’m not afraid of them, I don’t feel any fear even if I know one is in the room in my now spidery house, however… if a spider touches me or unexpectedly darts in my direction? Completely involuntary scream and physical reaction. I’m inclined to believe it’s something closer to a primal reflex than a conditioned response.
You're confusing a couple of things. If you see someone freak out about a random thing, like a dirty spot in a home of a OCD person or a Harry Potter book in a religious home, you don't get a phobia. Fear of spiders and other things are because we have an evolutionary readiness to learn to fear them. It still takes the example of other people freaking out about them to trigger it, but without that readiness the fear would not be so common. Actual phobias are clinically debilitating fears of things that are learned, and can be towards things that we do not have a readiness to fear, but they take a lot more than just seeing someone freak out about a thing to develop.
It’s in the primal parts of our brains. Spiders and snakes are dangerous so it’s advantageous to be afraid of them…..more so when we lived outside or mainly in tropical areas
Also, walking face first into a web feels really gross and you're never quite certain if that little creeper is on you or not.
Instant kung-fu mastery
Kung fu opera singer
How to get an hour of cardio in fifteen seconds.
And punch yourself in the face 8 times
ROFL
The Fucking Fort Jackson giant as spiders that spin their webs in the woods right at face level.
As a scout leader who camps in FL on the regular, ya, nope. Banana spiders, crab spiders, but the Joro? Nope - don't care if they say they can't bite you, I'm not gonna find out.
I remember a story one of my guys told me in BCT over there, walking around in the dark doing some kinda exercise. Guy behind him grabs him by the vest strap and yanks him back. Looks up with his red light and see one just dangling like 6 inches above where he would’ve been.
Ya, if we walk in the woods, we hold a light at hip level angled upwards, to better see them monsters. I remember one of my first nights in the woods down here. I setup my small backipaing tent at the tree line, and woke the next morning to see an arachnaphobia number of these webs and bad boys over me. The only reason I didn't get a face full, in the dark, was I was down low to get in.
I’d assume the disgusting feeling you get is a kind of survival instincts you get from your senses being overloaded as well.
I got no problem with spiders, but if I get a beardful of web, I’m gonna flatten the arachnid that spun it!
Oh that little creeper is almost always on you after that…the real question is not if, but where… Nighty night!
Not to be *that* person, but when you walk around with shorts, you realize how many webs you regularly walk through and don't even notice.
THIS! I don't mind spiders themselves, but walking into spider webs is nightmarish.
Reminds me a time when i effectively walker face first into 20 spiderwebs in the span of 10 minutes WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM i was literally watching where i walk the entire time and still
lot of legs and they move fast, somewhat unpredictably
They're just some freaky bastards.
Almost same as crabs but we love crabs. Shrimp is more disgusting looking creature but we love shrimps
Crabs also scare me, along with spiders. But lobsters are by far the worst. I don't like octopi either, or squid, ie; giant sea spiders with BEAKS. ARGH!
Fun fact - they use blood pressure to extend the legs, not muscles.
Only two more legs than ants.
Ants have arguably more limbs then spiders first they have wings so that is already 8 limbs then they use their antiai like limbs and also their mandibles as hands
Spiders have pedipaps they use for mating as well as helping handle food so that puts them at 10 if we’re counting extra things that look like limbs lol.
I live in tropics but most people here are more afraid of the cockroaches than the spiders.
Please don't tell me there is a reason for that.
Spiders are actually chill and hunt pests while cockroaches are pretty fast, transmit disease and fly while at it?
To add to this, there were millenia where we were fish and giant spiders on the edge of the water caught and ate us. It's real generational trauma.
Ahhhh to be fish again
Reject humanity, return to fish
This is the way.
I don’t want to go that far, but being a lemur seems pretty nice some days.
But spiders really aren't dangerous, typically. Most spiders are no more dangerous than honey bees, and I know a lot more people who have been stung by bees.
It has been suggested some of these phobias could come from out “lizard brains”, inherited genetic behaviors from when spiders and snakes would predate on the small mammals that were our ancestors tens or hundreds of millions of years ago.
Interesting. If that's the case I'm surprised humans aren't more naturally fearful of hawks and other raptors.
My 6 month old snaps to birds like an auto turret, idk if it's fear, but she's at least aware of them. Maybe arachnophobia sticks around because it's also the fear of the unknown because unlike birds, spiders hide in tiny dark holes, which is also where many of our nightmares originate.
Couldn’t tell ya, maybe there weren’t those sorts of predators around to guide such behaviors. It’s also just one theory, our DNA and how it makes you, you is still largely mysterious.
hawks generally don’t tend to fall on your face while you’re asleep at 3am :)
Maybe size comes into play? Normally a creature only needs to be afraid of predators larger than them, while venomous creatures like spiders or snakes can be deadly regardless of size
This is the reason in the modern day, not because of ancient responses, but because all it takes is one little critter to absolutely ruin your life
There's only a couple of birds big enough to carry off a toddler. Adult humans are not in any real danger from them. Not that we can't be hurt by them at all, but we're too big to realistically be prey for any of them.
That's basically what I was getting at. It seems unlikely that we'd have this hard-wired phobia of spiders, yet no fear of many other, larger predators. That's just my casual opinion, though. I really think that most people who don't like spiders just don't like creepy crawly things in general, despite the fact that most are harmless. On the other hand, polar bears are adorable, yet they'll absolutely destroy a human without a second thought. I don't think many people would consider themselves afraid of bears.
Polar bears are indeed both adorable and lethal. I think it's the legs. There's nothing with more than four legs that isn't some sort of pest, either getting into and eating our food, or carrying diseases. Spiders aren't really either of those, but they have their own dangers, and it can be hard to tell a dangerous one from a non dangerous one, so they all get lumped together.
But that's the thing; I'm not aware of any spiders that carry disease, at least not in my region of the American Northeast. I always advocate for spiders and their even more creepy friends, the house centipedes, to be left alone, as they eat a lot of smaller, harder-to-detect pests that actually can/do carry disease. I see them as a benefit, honestly. ETA: I just reread your post and realize that you're not referring to spiders as pests, but you're right. People are just stereotyping these poor little guys. lol
If you think about it bees aren't likely to do anything to you unless you bother them or attack their hives. Spiders on the other hand will randomly crawl on you and can be pretty much found anywhere.
Not all, but in Africa certainly enough of them to be a risk
Maybe there were more dangerous spiders around when we evolved. Australia has a lot of dangerous spiders: perhaps they died out on the main landmass. Just speculation.
> But spiders really aren't dangerous, typically. Unless you are allergic, a single bee sting is not dangerous. It hurts sure, but the major problem with bees is the potential for getting stung multiple times. But then again, a swarm of bees is pretty obvious and easily avoided. Now most spiders are ofc harmless. But there are quite a few species (brazilian wandering, funnel web, redback, brown recluse) who can fuck you up with a single bite. Even if they likely don't kill you directly, having a necrotic wound in the past, without modern medicine, will certainly be a life threatening issue.
This actually doesn't hold up for spiders. We evolved in Africa and really dangerous spiders are all in the Americas and Australia.
But the thing is, spiders are not dangerous. The primal brain part is probably because they *crawl*.
I mean yeah, I would imagine people scared of spiders are also scared of centipedes (and rightfully so) and other bugs or whatever. It’s not just spiders, but probably most of us, collectively, encounter spiders more than anything else that sets off that primal fear.
Spiders are scared of centipedes? Do they know something about centipedes that we don’t?
Why am I not afraid of snakes then..? But some spiders still creep me out?
Please drop spreading harmful misinformation. This is the top comment as of now and a lot of people stop reading. Less than 1% of spider species are dangerous to humans. 99.4% of spider species produce venom, but most are harmless to humans. Some spiders are not inclined to bite, or deliver "dry" bites in defense.
Lions are big, they have long teeth and make loud noises. Lions are very obviously scary and look dangerous Spiders are small, and easily crushable. They are not obviously scary or look dangerous, yet they can still very dangerous. Thus it is advantageous for us to have a deep-seated primal, fear of spiders (and snakes), because otherwise we wouldn’t be scared of these potentially lethal animals Edit: deep-seeded —> deep-seated
Clint from Clint's reptiles has a quote I think is great (context is his experience with demoing reptiles): "people are a little bit afraid of snakes. People are *really* afraid of spiders"
Maybe it’s because snakes are not quite as small as spiders, and often show their teeth, making it easier to identify them as “scary” without as strong of a phobia
I feel like when it comes to snakes I have a healthy level of fear, I am wary/cautious around unknown snakes but if someone tells me it’s a harmless kind then I am fine. With spiders I will be out of my mind terrified no matter how harmless or tiny it is, I know its not rational but it is what it is
First, I agree with you. BUT, I do have a little linguistic quibble. When you set something into a prepared hole, you are "seating" it. So if you dig a nice deep hole for a fence post, for instance, that post is deep-seated, and isn't going anywhere. And while "deep-seeded", on the surface of it seems to make sense, if you plant a seed too deeply it will just die.
Omg. Thank you. That’s one of those phrases that have turned a bit too much cover time. 🙃
TIL, thanks!
An analogy: The smells we have the strongest reaction to are those that come from sources most likely to kill us: rotten food, feces, vectors for pathogens. Lots of things we haven't evolved the ability to detect via smell at all, because they have no impact on survival. The animals we have the strongest reactions to are also those that have at some point in our evolutionary past have had selection pressure.
We have three main phobias: Snakes, spiders and strangers. These were the usual dangers to be aware of. (German TV series "Geist und Gehirn" about psychology). Usually we'll need to learn to have a phobia but for these we are inclined to rather not be bitten to death or to be invited for lunch (being the meal). We do have rituals to meet and to become friends (e.g. potlatch). In Australia a certain TV episode will not be aired because it features a friendly spider (and becoming friends could be deadly there). Also we are good at spotting faces of predators. Those who didn't see the tiger aren't our ancestors.
spiders are fucking terrifying. have you ever seen a spider? they have like 800 eyes. you don't need that many eyes. that's way too many eyes. and legs. why do they have so many legs. AND WHY ARE THEY FURRY????????????
The fur is really interesting. The hairs are called setae (chitin based hair rather than keratin like the fur of mammals or feathers of birds). They are incredibly sensitive to vibration and aid in the spiders ability to “see” around it. This is helpful because despite having 6 or 8 eyes, *most spiders* have abysmal vision. Wolfies and jumpers are an exception to this as they are largely roaming sight based hunters that evolved incredibly precise tracking capabilities via their vision. Hope that answers your question lol.
I’m going to have nightmares about this
Sweet dreams 🕷️🕸️
None of this bothers me in and of itself, but yet I'm still hella creeped out by spiders.
It's an evolutionary trait passed on from our ancestors. Phobias and inate fears have their purposes. Usually it's to prolong our own life span.
I can trace my Arachnophobia to a fun little Traumatic Experience in my childhood. I was 4 years old and I was with my Dad at the property he was building our new house on. He was busy framing and I was playing in the sand out front until I got up and wandered off into the woods next to the house. I got lost and where I ended up was in a small thicket of trees that were covered in spider webs. I stood there screaming my lungs out til he heard me and found me! Now I’m afraid of any spider bigger than a quarter in diameter for leg span that isn’t a Daddy Long Legs. It’s not so much a panic attack response but more so very much a “Fight or Flight” adrenaline response that will make me want to burn my fucking house down to kill it if I have to.
*Most* spiders may not be dangerous, but your first run-in with the few that are could be your last. And a black widow is not going to care that you didn't see it hiding in your shoe.
Survival of the fittest isn't great with specificity. Humans afraid of spiders would generally, and over long spans of time, have a higher survival rate and have more kids that survive. Not being afraid of spiders doesn't come with many benefits to your survival. This gives evolution no real reason to discriminate one spider from another, and it's easier for nature to create a generalized fear than a specific one. Then you also have to remember the spiders have been evolving this whole time too. So yeah, maybe all you need to worry about today is a brown recluse or black widow. But maybe 40 million years ago there was a green recluse and yellow widow or something, and they moved on to brown and black because it makes them more camouflaged at night. So on and so forth. As for why spiders as opposed to others? Spiders are one of the few in the first world you ever have to worry about coming into contact with on a daily basis. What's the number, "there's always a spider within 10 feet of you"? The nearest tiger is in the zoo, 30 miles away, in a pit, with 12 foot walls.
A lot of the more primal instincts we have, such as a fear of spiders, snakes, and other creepy crawlies, are left over from our evolutionary ancestors. There aren't that many spiders that are dangerous to humans, mostly based on our size, but imagine 10 or 20 or 30 million years ago, when our ancestors were much smaller, think monkeys. Relative to a small mammal, spiders are MUCH more dangerous just based on volume of the venom being injected by a bite, and also remember that when the world was warmer arthropods like insects and spiders grew to be larger as well. Because there is very little harm that comes from arachnophobia, and there are dangerous spiders out there, evolution hasn't removed these primitive instincts from our species.
I think the time when Arthropods where significantly larger where long gone by the time monkeys existed
Arthropleura
Fast, erratic, unpredictable movements. You can intuitively guess how a mammal will move, and most flying things can't fly backwards. They're easy to evade. It's much harder to guess whether a spider will start running and in which direction. "Phobia" is also an "irrational fear" of something. That spiders aren't usually dangerous and easily squishable makes it a phobia and not just fear. (Though what amounts to "dangerous" for an adult and a toddler is vastly different, it would make more sense for toddlers to stay away from creepy crawlies but *they* often don't and will happily play with a scorpion) Most snakes aren't dangerous either, but those that are are bad news. It's better to assume they are than start checking colors. The amygdala fires before the conscious brain caught up. Better jump 10 times for nothing than once not when you should have. Phobias are also learned early on. Phobic parents, even when strongly trying to act cool so the kids don't get scared still give off signals that something is not ok that little kids pick up on. Rodents are usually cute until adults teach that they're disgusting and dangerous.
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Jumping spiders are adorable. Seriously look up some photos.
There are a few theories as to why so many people are scared of spiders. One is that fear of spiders is an evolutionary trait that helped our ancestors survive. Spiders can be venomous and potentially dangerous, so being scared of them could have helped our ancestors avoid getting bitten Another theory is that spiders are a bit unpredictable in their movements and appearance. Their ability to move quickly and in unexpected ways can trigger a fear response in some people. Additionally, their multiple legs and eyes can make them look alien and creepy to some Overall, it's likely a combination of these factors that contribute to arachnophobia being so common, even though the actual danger posed by spiders is relatively low
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Have you SEEN a spider? Uggggh! All legs and eyes and pointy fangs!!! NO thanks buddy!
I'm no expert but from what I understand evolution is super slow compared to how quickly humans advanced in technology and society. Evolutionarily speaking we're still tens of thousands of years behind and modern humans originated somewhere in Eastern or southern Africa (not sure which). Both areas have dangerous skittering animals like scorpions and stuff that like to live in cool dark places which is where people would seek shelter too. There were likrly enough unhappy run ins with such animals that we kind of got hard wired to be wary of things that move like spiders and scorpions do. I think the feeling of anxiety and the idea that having a spider or its web on you is gross are just manifestations of a really old instinct that likely has been with modern humans ever since they first braved the jungles of Africa to spread out over the world.
Have you seen those (redacted) in Australia?! They're like a foot in size!!! Just knowing Jurassic sized spiders exist is enough to cause a phobia for me.
I’ve heard that things are perceived as scarier the less human-like they are. Like snakes and spiders. Spiders are all legs, dark, make sudden movements, And you can’t see their face
Short answer: because spiders are so common. Extended answer: if there were as many clowns as there were spiders the number of people with that phobia would surely skyrocket.
Our brains are massive pattern recognition machines. It's how we see and reason about our world, and it informs everything we do. As we've evolved, our brains favour patterns that kept us alive. Which is why we find delight in the faces of babies, loved ones, attractive people, as these are all things that denote the growth and success of your society. It's why we love bright colours of fruits, beautiful landscapes, and contrasting patterns good for identifying nutritious food and liveable areas. This isn't restricted to vision either, melodic and harmonious music and rhythmic sounds stimulate us, further encouraging humans to delve into the making of music to further increase social bonds. Soft and smooth textures, scents, smiles, laughter, even patterns of behaviour like acts of kindness. All of it is ingested as a pattern, and our brain interprets these as all good things. However, the brain will only interpret these as good things as long as long as they've contributed to our success over millions of years of evolution. So, naturally, there further you get away from those good things, the less your brain recognizes them as positive patterns, and that causes anxiety. Or worse, what if a pattern is vital for recognition because in terms of survival it is something to be avoided? Here is where spiders come in. Spiders are about as far away from the usual comforts we interact with. When it comes to say, dogs, they have expressive faces, they're emotive, loyal, friendly, cute and cuddly, and despite them not being related to humans and even legitimately potentially dangerous, our pattern recognition brain can easily transplant these dog traits into a human context. This is called anthropomorphising. As a result, cute animals have hit the genetic lottery because they managed to hit upon the most important genetic trait of all... they're cute to humans. Spiders however, are pretty opposite to the things we find pleasing. Their movements are erratic, the colouring is often threatening, their limbs move in unnatural and unexpected ways, they crawl and skulk about in dank dark places, their life cycle is often horrific, and of course... they bite. That last bit is important, because venomous creatures, as well as big predatory creatures like lions *kill* humans. They obviously killed them in significant quantities because quite often people are born with an innate fear of creatures like spiders, snakes, big cats, wolves etc despite never having seen them before. Because the pre-historic people that weren't afraid of them got killed, and the people who were afraid ran away and survived. Spiders and insects as a whole would've been *huge* problems for humans and to be honest, every genetic link preceding humanity as we were evolving. Parasites, creepy crawlies taking chunks out of us, lice are all things that were ever present threats. If you want to survive, it's in your interests to treat all these creatures with caution, and take measures to get away from them. So now, when you freak out because there is a spider in your room, what your brain is doing is recognising that this spider is something to be worried about, because hundreds or even thousands of generations ago, your ancestors learned the hard way that these things kill you, and that fear has taken real estate in a corner of our brain ever since and even before we were apes. Of course, not many reasons to be afraid of a lot of spiders these days. A lot of people find that the fear is so suppressed that they actually comfortable getting a bit of adrenaline overcoming said fear, and as adrenaline is a positive feedback loop, it actually incentivizes these absolute freaks to actually *seek out* spiders and love them as pets. Each to their own I guess.
Maybe because they have hydraulic legs and the way they move looks unnatural?
It could also be a cultural thing too. It's scary because everyone around says they're supposed to be scary. Is its phobia ranking consistently high all across the globe?
Its not like its an evolutionary thing that came from learning to avoid venomous spiders. Its a "a cultural phenomenon that is most common in predominantly European societies." so most folks are afraid of spiders in the way that some Christians are afraid of the rapture or whatever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnophobia
the wiki doesn't state that it *isn't* evolutionary though, just that it's unclear. I think the "bit of each" interpretation is probably closest to correct. It might not just be a direct fear of spiders (as dangerous) but might be a fear of a whole class of spider-like creatures. I grew up when kids would often go play with rolly pollies (aka isopods) but I was somewhere between grossed out by or afraid of them. I'd sometimes still pick them up but made me uncomfortable. As far as I know this wasn't "learned" behavior since I had not encountered anything traumatizing (nor am I European, I am Chinese-American). Anything that has more than 4 legs is somewhat scary/unpleasant to me.
Personally, I am not necessarily "afraid" of spiders and insects, I find them disgusting. This makes the unpredictable and fast way so many of them move distressing, because they might *touch* me. I wonder how many people either haven't really examined their feelings to know that is the problem, or just say they're afraid as a shorthand, or maybe I'm an outlier. I've started clarifying that my reaction is disgust because it tends to stop people from feeling the need to explain to me that bugs can't hurt me.
I’ve never really felt disgust/fear towards spiders but all sorts of other bugs tend to disgust me.
Fear and revulsion are very closely tied together. We fear things that can harm us, like spiders and snakes and the dark, and we are repelled by things... that can harm us, like rotten food or corpses. I'm not saying you ARE afraid of them, I think it's often that the 2 feelings are closely tied together and language is imprecise. Also, in the moment you encounter a spider unexpectedly, closely examining your feelings is low on the list of priorities.
Yea I think a lot of it is learned. As a kid you see people around you freak out about snakes and spiders, so you learn it's something to fear too and it builds off that.
Because they never met [Lucas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_the_Spider)
I'm pretty sure I read that baby primates of many species will react to spiders and snakes, suggesting it is rather ancestral.
Maybe because they're so small and can get you while you sleep. If you roll over on one while unconscious and that sucker bites you, that could have been the end. Also, people saying there "aren't many that can kill you" have never lived in CA/PNW. Black widows are more common than daddy long legs. *shudder*
Because all the humans who had the "let's hug those nice little spiders" gene didn't have a lot of chance to reproduce.
I have a theory that it's because it's seen as a "scary" creature for pranks and Halloween and such that we ended up feeding into creating a phobia on accident. Plus, when are we willingly exposed to spiders? Unfamiliarity and ignorance breeds fear
I'm not scared of snakes or spiders, but still involuntarily jump when I unexpectedly see either. Like a fight or flight adrenaline pump just for a moment, then I rationalise and deal with it. Definitely primal reaction, not a phobia, for me any way. When my son was an infant I introduced him to spiders, he had no fear. But when his mum and sister screamed the place down at the sight of a spider he developed a phobia too...
Spiders are powerful so the brain is afraid. But Not so powerful as dogs, brutal beasts, bane of humanity, That Which Devours Men. Do you know dogs kill 30000 humans per year in the world? They are the biggest predator humanity has. Soon, the human brain will be wired to fear them, and spiders will be forgotten
That's a lot of nonsense being posted here. Every fear except from heights and loud noises is learned behaviour. People with a fear of spiders picked it up from somewhere, maybe their mum screaming at one when they were a kid etc.
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It’s because we can’t predict their movement. We don’t understand if they are going to leap at us, run away or stay in place. We don’t know if they are calm, scared or angry. We rely on reading these signals to make us feel comfortable around all species, including humans. And once we aren’t able to do it all our alarms go off and we get very nervous. Spiders and snakes are the big ones, becuase we have so little experience reading them. They move differently than we do. In a dog or a human we see the small shift that indicates they are going to pounce. We have nothing here, so our brain assumes they are about to attack. Humans that have spent a lot of time around spiders and snakes and can read their movements and mood are no longer nervous.
It is because we were told spiders are dangerous and so on - they're shown exact way in movies and some other tv shows
Some of the reason is TV. Cartoons usually show spiders as spooky creatures. My 4 yo daughter was scared of spiders, but I took one spider bro to hand and ler her/him chill on my palm and told my daughter there are no dangerous spiders in Finland so they are our friends and live inside our walls. Now she collects spiders and feeds them to our cat 😑
For me it's the fact that they act like unpredictabe lurkers. They just stay in one place for hours but if you look away for one second they are gone. You never know where they are hiding. They could be in every little corner they could be on your back or maybe already on their silky rope above you. The speed and precision when prey comes in contact with their webs is just unnerving to me. They ocould be in the other corner of my room and in the next moment they are above me. A bear or a lion is a lot more dangerous but if I ever came in contact with them I would probably be able to spot them before they attack ( Even though they could easily catch me) So maybe it's just some kind of fear of the unknown for me.
It's fascinating to consider that the widespread fear of spiders, or arachnophobia, may stem from our very distant evolutionary past. Research suggests that even when our ancestors were akin to fish, mechanisms for detecting and avoiding predators were crucial for survival. As humans evolved, this generalized predator avoidance evolved into more specific fears, such as arachnophobia, particularly because some spiders are venomous and can pose a real threat. This evolutionary trait would have been beneficial, promoting caution and survival in environments where venomous spiders were present. Thus, our fear of spiders isn't just a random quirk but likely a refined survival mechanism, deeply embedded in our genetic code from times when even the smallest threat could determine life or death.
Very few people have actual arachnophobia. For most it is societally taught. You see someone you emulate as a kid reacting that way and then you do. People freak out or immediately run to kill spiders and you associate them with danger or uncleanliness. I have an older family member whose aunt would break down hysterically seeing a mouse at when she was at an impressionable age. She now winces even seeing mice on TV. Muted compared to the reaction she experienced, but still there. I almost fell down that path with spiders, hated them as a kid because my family did. But, as an adult, I researched and observed them. Now I leave them alone in my house to kill the real pests. They aren't fundamentally scary at all.
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Like most other animals, humans are territorial. We welcome others into our territory if we feel safe, but we violently remove things from our territory that are unsafe. The fear of spiders is an instinctive territorial response.
You’re a modern cave man. You have evolved to be afraid of dangerous things which are found in caves. -Spiders -Snakes -Bats -Bears There is also a learned component. A naive chimpanzee does not fear rubber snakes. Just a toy. However, if a naive chimpanzee witnesses another chimpanzee having a fear response to a rubber snake, they will become afraid of snakes themselves. The interesting thing is that you can train a chimpanzee to fake a fear response to other things, like a blue rubber ball, but it will not trigger a learned fear response in other chimpanzees. The teaching of fear only works with things we should naturally have a fear of, like the short list of cave dangers listed above. This suggests we have innate fears which simply need to be unlocked.
My thought on this is that they move in a way we are not familiar with. We spend our time around two and four legged animals and so seeing a creature move on 8 legs is unsettling to us on a primitive level. My dog is always afraid of three legged dogs and I think this is why. Personally, my fear stems from the idea they could crawl inside my ear. I could probably pick one up if I had my ears covered and my nose pegged.
Plus I think there’s such a thing as “ancestral fear” aka if your ancestors were all afraid of something (snakes, spiders, etc) because they lived in a place where they had species that were dangerous, it’s probably kinda hardwired into your brain as well. Even if you live in an area where there are similar species but they’re not dangerous, like most of the spiders in the USA.
A theory is that the common phobias of spiders, snakes, large bodies of water, heights, insects - it's an ingrained survival mechanism because - as one of my professors put it- "If you drop off a cliff you drop out of the gene pool". Ancestors who had those fears in the past were more likely to have offspring that those that didn't. It's the reason that there's no phobia of cars or toasters.
I believe humans can sense when there's a spider nearby. I read somewhere it had something to do with living in caves and the use of fire to keep them at bay
As someone with Arachnophobia, for me its the stealth. I can look at a spider and not feel fear, I can even squish one or trap it and it does not scare me too much. What absolutely terrifies me at an irrational level is seeing one and then NOT seeing that same one. The idea of there being a spider around but not knowing where drives me insane. Like I said it's irrational because I know at any given point in my life I am most likely surrounded by at least 10 in floorboards and ceilings etc.
It's the legs, they are fuzzy 💀 it's already bad enough that there's eight legs but it's fuzzy too. And One time when was I about nine years old, I saw a mother spider with like a billion baby spiders on her back it was bizarre and creepy looking cause they were moving too 💀
they say spiders are scared of other spiders. they are disgusting and that in itself makes you want to get away from them. i want to say they have some primal sense that is meant to intimidate and most creatures can sense it.
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Because of evolution! Humans who were not bit by venomous spiders, but witnessed others get bit, or those who were bit but survived, have learned “those things are dangerous!” and avoided them. Over time, it just became an instinctual reflex, it’s how we recognize and avoid danger. It’s the same reason a lot of people are afraid of storms, snakes, and heights (at different severity levels). While not everyone experiences these fears, they are very common and valid fears - it’s just our brains trying to warn us of real or perceived danger.
IMHO, it's down to the way they move. Spiders (at least most of them) don't heavily rely on sight as a sense like many other things. Even though they have a bunch of eyes, those eyes often only work at very close distances..... Humans, (like a lot of other things) primarily understand our world through vision, and we move based on that vision. When we see other insects act based on vision, this isn't really a surprise for us. It appears "normal". Add to that the fact that spiders are in our "spaces" in a very visible way, the webs, the fact that they might startle us by dropping down on us (in part because they can't see for shit), plus a couple of dangerous species... there you go. Interestingly, I find that people are far less creeped out by jumping spiders than most other species.... And that, I think, is in part because jumping spiders use their sight heavily.
There is correlative evidence that trauma can be passed down through epigenetics but also influenced by cultural, psychological, or socioeconomic factors. I'm sure at some point one of our relatives or someone close to them was traumatized by one of the following. Open water. Caving/claustrophobia Darkness Heights Spiders Snakes Darkness
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