🧵Arachnophobia, while common, is unique amongst phobias bc often invokes an overlap of fear and disgust! This is not prevalent in other arthropod phobias. Interestingly, fear & disgust utilize the same neural network and have similar outputs, making them difficult to disentangle.
Arachnophobia is interesting to me because it's so specific. Like, people generally aren't afraid of crabs, even though they're hairy and skitter around. And they're not afraid of bugs, even though they have about the same number of eyes. Most people will never even see a dangerous spider irl.
Studying Arachnophobia is important bc:
1. It pushes for greater understanding of neurobiology and the mechanisms of fear & disgust
2. Similarly, it drives healthcare innovation in treating clinical phobias E.g. VR therapy
3. It has created many questions and studies around “nature vs nurture”
4. My favorite amongst these is that there are researchers using arachnophobia to understand how writing, art, and story telling influence perceptions. I love learning about how people have talked about and depicted spiders across time and cultures.
5. Perhaps most notably, Arachnophobia has influenced SciComm/Outreach practices, asking us to be intentional and effective in how we speak and teach about animals to quell fear and incite curiosity in all kinds of people.
There are many theories on the origins of arachnophobia, from biological to sociocultural. We know that there is no singular origin, but if anything, I’m grateful that discussing arachnophobia with people has brought me closer to many people, and in turn, brought them closer to nature! 🕷️🕸️
Also, happy to share my favorite/interesting arachnophobia papers, as somebody who has done a lot of lit searchers and compiling in this subject!
Oct 9, 2025 16:11
🧵Arachnophobia, while common, is unique amongst phobias bc often invokes an overlap of fear and disgust! This is not prevalent in other arthropod phobias. Interestingly, fear & disgust utilize the same neural network and have similar outputs, making them difficult to disentangle.