Perhaps the most maligned creepy crawly known to man, the spider invokes irrational fear in many people, and women are four times as likely to fear spiders than men. But a new study conducted by a developmental psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania could show that females are genetically predisposed to develop fears for certain types of animals.
According to New Scientist Dr. David Rakison "found that baby girls only 11 months old rapidly start to associate pictures of spiders with fear." Boys of the same age remained indifferent.
But, when Rakison showed a different group of baby girls images of spiders with smiling faces he discovered that the babies had a different response towards them, suggesting that the fear is not innate, but learned. Girls just have an easier time learning to be scared of spiders.
Rakison attributes this to our hunter-gatherer instincts. But if women traditionally fill the "gatherer" role, wouldn't they then be more likely to be sticking their hands in places, like berry bushes, where there might be a spider-web or snake hole?
