U.Va. research: Snake phobia hardwired
Fri Feb 29, 6:13 PM ET

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Two University of Virginia researchers believe that humans are genetically predisposed to be deathly afraid of snakes. Judy S. DeLoache, a U.Va. professor of developmental psychology, said she has a snake phobia, but wonders why. "The question was, where did that fear come from?"

She believes it's because snakes would have posed a significant threat to our ancestors, so a fear of snakes remains hardwired into human brains today.

DeLoache said an experiment she conducted with graduate student Vanessa LoBue proved that adults and preschool children have an extraordinary ability to quickly pinpoint snakes amid harmless distractions.

They conducted three experiments with 24 adults and 24 3-year-olds. Both groups were shown a large touch-screen computer monitor that displayed nine color photographs.

They asked half of the people to find the single image of a snake among non-threatening pictures of caterpillars, flowers or frogs. The second group was told to find the single photo of a single non-threatening item among eight images of snakes.

The researchers found that adults and children were much faster at discovering snakes than they were at locating non-threatening flora or fauna.

The finding that children saw the snakes as rapidly as adults is particularly fascinating, LoBue said, because preschool children tend to be fearless and are less likely to have had a negative experience with snakes.
U.Va. research: Snake phobia hardwired - Yahoo! News
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I am not afraid of them.. I wouldn't own one, but they don't bother me.

Not afraid...

I live in Philly so I don't interact with them, but on the couple occasions I have in the past, it was no big thing.

I think the key is not to put yourself in a situation where you're not aware of what can happen...Be relaxed and understand location, positioning, etc, and there shouldn't be any problems...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

We live in an area where they are always present.. just move away from them and go on..

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"It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that truly makes him a man. Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace." -- Albert Schweitzer

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

I was a tomboy growing up and absolutely loved catching snakes to bring home as pets. Heck, I still love catching them. My mother was scared of snakes and I lost count of how many she let die while I'd be staying with family in Alabama during the summer...

I even love the poisonous ones, but only keep the non-poisonous varieties as pets...We hae to think of our other critters and what would happen IF a poisonous one got loose. Broke hubby's heart a couple of years back, when I told him no to bring home the baby rattlesnake he found on one of the barges.

I've kept ringed neck snakes (had one named Sneaky Snake who actually did love rootbeer and icecream), black snakes, garter snakes, green tree snakes, ribbon snakes, and corn snakes.

A couple of years ago, we visited a snake farm and hubby and I were tempted to talk the guy out of his female albino king cobra...She was beautiful! Not to mention the 12 foot boa constrictor that had the most beautiful markings we'd ever seen.

So you can deffinately mark me down as a snake lover. Got my eye currently on a beautiful black and white king snake at one of the snake stores in St. Louis.

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I'm afraid of snake threads...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

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I enjoy visiting many uninhabited islands,one thing these islands all have in common is an abundance of snakes! Most are not leathal but some can be.I've always tried to keep myself aware of my surroundings.There was one island that my friends and I wanted to visit but we were told not to go there by the government because of an intense snake infestation. The government tried to decrease the snake population there by releasing several wild pigs on the island...result...the snakes killed the pigs!

Please give me the exact location and directions...

I know some people who could "use" a good vacation...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

When I was comms in the military, we always had problems with snakes in guam.... it was not pretty.