The fascinating fear of snakes

WE talk casually about an instinctive fear of snakes. However, Guido runs a mile when he sees a snake but Charlie sits down. So what’s going on?

It may be that Charlie decided freezing was better than running, but by his relaxed manner, it’s more likely he just wasn’t scared.

In the past, scientists thought that all living things inherited a bunch of fears in order to make survival easier. They reasoned we were born with a fear of heights, wriggly things, big teeth and more because it stops us from falling off cliffs, being bitten by snakes, eaten by sharks, and so on.

While it sounds reasonable, it doesn’t seem to be entirely true. For one thing, there’s Charlie who isn’t worried about cobras. Also, there are lots of people who adore heights, as well as people who love their pet snakes, and who spend their holidays swimming with sharks.

In fact, experiments show that babies aren’t frightened of snakes and spiders at all. They’re interested but not afraid. What seems to matter more is experience. If we play with snakes as kids and nothing happens, we like snakes. It’s the same for cats: kittens who grow up with rats, learn to love rats.

But we’re very quick to learn from bad experiences. It only takes a bite or a fright to learn fear. We can also learn to fear by picking up on the behaviour of the people around us.

What is even more interesting is that studies from the field of behavioural epigenetics show that it is also possible that our parents’ life experiences may be transmitted to us at a genetic level.

So Guido running away and Charlie being interested is part of a big, complicated picture that we still have to unravel. Who knew, right?