Do Spiders Ride on the Fear of Scorpions? A Cross-Cultural Eye Tracking Study

SIMPLE SUMMARY: In animal phobia research, one of the most attractive topics has been arachnophobia—the specific phobia of spiders. In this study, we explore the apparent paradox of mostly harmless spiders being the object of one of the most common animal fears. Recently, it has been suggested that negative emotions associated with spiders could be triggered by a more generalized fear of chelicerates, where scorpions are the primordial model that one should be afraid of. This hypothesis anticipates that deep fear of scorpions was present in human ancestors and that nowadays it is still generally shared among cultures. To test this assumption, we recruited participants from the Republic of Somaliland and the Czech Republic for an eye-tracking experiment. We found a very strong attentional bias for scorpions as opposed to spiders in Somalis and a similar albeit smaller bias in Czechs. The study deals with possible evolutionary origins of the fear of spiders and arachnophobia, one of the most common specific animal phobias. Moreover, it adds to a very limited number of studies focusing on people’s perception of animals in Sub-Saharan Africa. ABSTRACT: Deep fear of spiders is common in many countries, yet its origin remains unexplained. In this study, we tested a hypothesis based on recent studies suggesting that fear of spiders might stem from a generalized fear of chelicerates or fear of scorpions. To this end, we conducted an eye tracking experiment using a spontaneous gaze preference paradigm, with spiders and scorpions (previously neglected but crucial stimuli) as threatening stimuli and grasshoppers as control stimuli. In total, 67 participants from Somaliland and 67 participants from the Czech Republic were recruited and presented with a sequence of paired images. Both Somali and Czech people looked longer (total duration of the gaze) and more often (number of fixations) on the threatening stimuli (spiders and scorpions) when presented with a control (grasshopper). When both threatening stimuli were presented together, Somali participants focused significantly more on the scorpion, whereas in Czech participants, the effect was less pronounced, and in Czech women it was not significant. This supports the hypothesis that fear of spiders originated as a generalized fear of scorpions. Moreover, the importance of spiders as fear-eliciting stimuli may be enhanced in the absence of scorpions in the environment.