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Humans' fear of spiders actually stems from their ancestors' fear of scorpions. By contrast, spiders do little harm to humans.

(by Chen Qiang / tr. by Robert Taylor)

Many people are afraid of spiders and even scream involuntarily when they see them. However, for some people, their fear of spiders is stronger, affecting their psychology and interfering with their daily life. This extreme fear of spiders, known as arachnophobia, can lead to dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat, sweating, trembling and difficulty breathing.

Although some cultures regard spiders as auspicious and sacred symbols, fried spiders are still a delicacy in Cambodia. But the portrayal of spiders in popular culture, especially in Western culture, has exacerbated arachnophobia. It is estimated that about 2.7% of the world's population suffers from arachnophobia.

Why are humans afraid of spiders? One theory is that human ancestors may have encountered dangerous spider species and thus evolved into a fear response to spiders. But there is something wrong with this statement.

First of all, of the more than 50,000 known species of spiders, less than 0.5% of them pose a potential danger to humans. In other words, most spiders are actually harmless. Second, spiders that threaten humans live mainly in Australia and South America, while they are not common in Africa, where humans originated.

Based on these facts, Daniel Frynta of Charlie University in the Czech Republic and his colleagues have come up with a new idea: our fear of spiders may not come from "harmless" spiders, but from their close relatives, scorpions.

Unlike most spiders, scorpions do pose a real threat to humans. According to statistics, about 1.5 million cases of scorpion wounding are reported worldwide every year, resulting in about 2600 deaths. Related studies have also shown that many scorpion species that produce venom that is particularly effective for mammals are native to Africa and the Middle East. As a result, our ancestors probably coexisted with dangerous scorpions and evolved their fear of scorpions.

The human brain often overgeneralizes risks. In other words, we tend to regard some less dangerous things as very dangerous things, just because they look like each other. Scorpions are dangerous for humans, so we are afraid of spiders and other animals that look like scorpions.

How to overcome the fear of spiders? Fear is a healthy and normal response that can help us avoid danger. But when fear becomes a phobia, it will affect the quality of our daily life and may cause serious psychological distress. If you have arachnophobia, how do you overcome it?

At present, exposure therapy is the most commonly used method to treat phobias. This is a treatment based on cognitive behavior theory, which reduces their anxiety levels by gradually exposing patients to what they are afraid of, and changes their cognition and emotions about the object of fear until they are no longer afraid. For example, people who are afraid of spiders can start by looking at pictures of spiders and then gradually transition to watching videos, or using virtual reality technology to simulate situations in which they encounter spiders. Studies have shown that exposure therapy is more than 80% effective in treating all kinds of phobias.

In addition to exposure therapy, knowing some scientific knowledge about spiders can also help overcome fear of them. You can see that spiders play an important role in the earth's ecosystem-they can control the number of insects such as mosquitoes, flies and moths, and are a source of food for many birds and lizards and other animals. In addition, it's reassuring to know that the chances of being bitten by spiders are very low, and in most cases, spider bites cause only mild allergic reactions, similar to being bitten by mosquitoes.

References:

Https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01325-z

Https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8154701/

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