Phobic dimensions: IV. The structure of animal fears

Animal eMotion, or the emotional evaluation of moving animals

Responding adequately to the behaviour of human and non-human animals in our environment has been crucial for our survival. This is also reflected in our exceptional capacity to detect and interpret biological motion signals. However, even though our emotions have specifically emerged as automatic adaptive responses to such vital stimuli, few studies investigated the influence of biological motion on emotional evaluations. Here, we test how the motion of animals affects emotional judgements by contrasting static animal images and videos. We investigated this question (1) in non-fearful observers across many different animals, and (2) in observers afraid of particular animals across four types of animals, including the feared ones. In line with previous studies, we find an idiosyncratic pattern of evoked emotions across different types of animals. These emotions can be explained to different extents by regression models based on relevant predictor variables (e.g. familiarity, dangerousness). Additionally, our findings show a boosting effect of motion on emotional evaluations across all animals, with an additional increase in (negative) emotions for moving feared animals (except snakes). We discuss implications of our results for experimental and clinical research and applications, highlighting the importance of experiments with dynamic and ecologically valid stimuli.

Alternative Paradigms in Animal Health Decisions: A Framework for Treating Animals Not Only as Commodities

Simple Summary

Since zoonotic diseases can be transmitted from animals to humans, more comprehensive measures are needed when preventing and controlling these diseases. Because the value of animals is mainly based on monetary terms, animals are typically treated as commodities, impacting public health decisions. Therefore, a framework is proposed to value the health of animals beyond money for public health decision-making with a “One Health” approach. The aim is to have more comprehensive animal values based on the opinion of societies. However, tackling the dilemmas related to animal diseases, public health, and welfare still represents a challenge and a work in progress.

Abstract

Zoonoses are diseases transmitted from (vertebrate) animals to humans in the environment. The control and prevention of these diseases require an appropriate way to measure health value for prudent and well-balanced decisions in public health, production costs, and market values. Currently, the impact of diseases and animal disease control measures are typically assessed in monetary values, thus lacking consideration of other values such as emotional, societal, ecological, among others. Therefore, a framework is proposed that aims to explore, understand, and open up a conversation about the non-monetary value of animals through environmental and normative ethics. This method might help us complement the existing metrics in health, which are currently DALY and zDALY, adding more comprehensive values for animal and human health to the “One Health” approach. As an example of this framework application, participants can choose what they are willing to give in exchange for curing an animal in hypothetical scenarios selecting a human health condition to suffer, the amount of money, and lifetime as a tradeoff. Considering animals beyond their monetary value in public health decisions might contribute to a more rigorous assessment of the burden of zoonotic diseases, among other health decisions. This study is structured as follows: after a brief introduction of zoonoses, animal health, and health metrics, briefly, different environmental health perspectives are presented. Based on this, a framework for animal health decisions is proposed. This framework introduces the “anthropozoocentric interface” based on anthropocentrism and zoocentrism perspectives.

Cross-Cultural Awareness and Attitudes Toward Threatened Animal Species

The preservation of our planet’s decreasing biodiversity is a global challenge. Human attitudes and preferences toward animals have profound impacts on conservation policies and decisions. To date, the vast majority of studies about human attitudes and concern toward animals have focused largely on western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (i.e., WEIRD) populations. In order to mitigate biodiversity loss globally, an understanding of how humans make decisions about animals from multicultural perspectives is needed. The present study examines familiarity, liking and endorsement of government protection amongst six broad cultural groups living in Qatar for five threatened animal species indigenous to the Arabian Gulf. Our findings highlight similarities and differences across cultures toward animals. Overall, familiarity did not predict endorsement for government protection after liking was accounted for. Liking, however, emerged as an important predictor of endorsement for government protection across cultures, although the degree of animal liking varied culturally. WEIRD and South East Asian participants showed similar and more positive attitudes toward animals compared to the other groups. Participants from the Arabian Gulf, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia responded similarly toward the animals. Interestingly, the Arabian Gulf group demonstrated significantly less liking and protection endorsement for animals, including those animals which play an important role in their culture. This research highlights intriguing avenues for future research and points to liking as a possible universal human attitude toward animals that influences decision making about conservation across all cultures while suggesting applications for improving education.

SAD but True: Species Awareness Disparity in Bees Is a Result of Bee-Less Biology Lessons in Germany

Bee and insect mortality has recently moved to the forefront of current nature conservation debates and experiences intensive media coverage worldwide. In order to understand the complexity, it is necessary to raise awareness of the diversity of bees. This study investigated whether students are aware of the species diversity of bees. We are guided by the concept of ‘plant blindness’ and show that it cannot be assumed that people are only ’plant-blind’. Therefore, we introduce the concept of Species Awareness Disparity (SAD) in bees to describe a phenomenon which can be defined as the failure to appreciate the significance of wild bee species and the inability to distinguish between individual species of the Apidae family. A total of 421 German students in grades 5–7 participated. The majority of students did not associate a diversity of species with the term ‘wild bee’ but rather consider the honeybee as the bee. Only 2.7% (N = 421) of the students were able to correctly identify pictures of wild bees and the honeybee. This highlights the importance of educating students about the identity and nature of bees in their environment so that they become aware of their meaning from both a personal and an ecological perspective.

Girls' Stuff? Maternal Gender Stereotypes and Their Daughters' Fear

One of the most robust findings in psychopathology is the fact that specific phobias are more prevalent in women than in men. Although there are several theoretical accounts for biological and social contributions to this gender difference, empirical data are surprisingly limited. Interestingly, there is evidence that individuals with stereotypical feminine characteristics are more fearful than those with stereotypical masculine characteristics; this is beyond biological sex. Because gender role stereotypes are reinforced by parental behavior, we aimed to examine the relationship of maternal gender stereotypes and children's fear. Dyads of 38 mothers and their daughters (between ages 6 and 10) were included. We assessed maternal implicit and explicit gender stereotypes as well as their daughters' self-reported general fearfulness, specific fear of snakes, and approach behavior toward a living snake. First, mothers' fear of snakes significantly correlated with their daughters' fear of snakes. Second, mothers' gender stereotypes significantly correlated with their daughters' self-reported fear. Specifically, maternal implicit gender stereotypes were associated with daughters' fear of snakes and fear ratings in response to the snake. Moreover, in children, self-reported fear correlated with avoidance of the fear-relevant animal. Together, these results provide first evidence for a potential role of parental gender stereotypes in the development and maintenance of fear in their offspring.

Factors Influencing the Sponsoring of Animals in Slovak Zoos

Anthropogenic disturbance causes biodiversity loss, and consequently the captive conservation (ex situ) of threatened animals may be an effective strategy in protecting species. We used estimated body mass, phylogenetic closeness with humans, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) conservation status, and species attractiveness scores, to examine the factors influencing the adoption likelihood of a species in all Slovak zoos. In general, vertebrates received more funding than invertebrates, and mammals were the preferred taxa by private contributors. In terms of funding, we propose that the perception of mammals as phylogenetically close to humans, and attractiveness factor, contribute to an advantage over less attractive and phylogenetically distant species. Conservation status also contributed to the amount of donations; however, the magnitude of these relationships was weak when compared to the effect of animal taxa. These results suggest that Slovak zoos might be more successful in raising donations by breeding threatened species, and raising public awareness about these animal species. Displaying popular, flagship species of non-mammal taxa may increase interest among the public as well, and may translate into a significant growth in the amount of donations.

Fear inoculation among snake experts

BACKGROUND

Fear acquisition of certain stimuli, such as snakes, is thought to be rapid, resistant to extinction, and easily transferable onto other similar objects. It has been hypothesized that due to increased survival chances, preparedness to instantly acquire fear towards evolutionary threats has been hardwired into neural pathways of the primate brain. Here, we compare participants' fear of snakes according to experience; from those who often deal with snakes and even suffer snakebites to those unfamiliar with snakes.

METHODS

The Snake Questionnaire-12 (SNAQ-12) and Specific Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ) were administered to three groups of participants with a different level of experience with snakes and snakebites: 1) snake experts, 2) firefighters, and 3) college students.

RESULTS

This study shows that individuals more experienced with snakes demonstrate lower fear. Moreover, participants who have suffered a snakebite (either venomous or not) score lower on fear of snakes (SNAQ-12), but not of all other potentially phobic stimuli (SPQ).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that a harmless benign exposure might immunize people to highly biologically prepared fears of evolutionary threats, such as snakes.

Promoting Pro-Environmental BEEhavior in School. Factors Leading to Eco-Friendly Student Action

Many insects, including numerous species of wild bees, are currently threatened with extinction. Environmental education in schools is a suitable starting point to draw attention to this problem, to raise awareness of biodiversity, and to highlight potential actions to protect wild bees and other insects. This study examined the relationship between pro-environmental behavior intentions and knowledge, attitude, fear, interest, and enjoyment of learning in a school intervention involving hands-on activities with living bumblebees. In total, 188 German 10- to 14-year-old high-school students participated in the project and took care of bumblebee colonies. Environmentally friendly behavioral intentions increased significantly between the pretest and posttest; however, no significant increase was found between the pretest and follow-up test. Bumblebee-friendly, pro-environmental behavior intentions correlated highly with attitude and interest, and correlated with knowledge and learning enjoyment with a medium effect size.

Disgust propensity and sensitivity in childhood anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder: Two constructs differentially related to obsessional content

The role of disgust in anxiety and related disorders has been extensively studied in adults, however its role in childhood psychopathology is in need of further investigation. The adult literature has suggested that two distinct sub-constructs within "disgust proneness" may differentially predict anxiety-related disorders. Namely, disgust propensity (DP) has been defined as the likelihood an individual will experience a disgust reaction, and disgust sensitivity (DS) as the degree to which an individual is distressed by their experience of disgust. The current study aimed to validate the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale-Revised (DPSS-R) in a sample of youth receiving intensive services for OCD and anxiety, examine the relationship between disgust sub-constructs and obsessional content in a sample of youth with OCD, and examine the relationship between disgust change and symptom severity at discharge. A confirmatory factor analysis supported a two-factor structure of the DPSS-R. DP was found to be uniquely predictive of contamination obsessions, and DS was found to be uniquely predictive of moral obsessions. Lastly, change in DP, but not DS, predicted overall change in OCD symptom severity. The present study provides a valid measure of DS and DP in youth with anxiety and related disorders, and suggests that subconstructs of disgust may serve as distinct risk factors for obsessional content in youth with OCD. Future research should examine the predictive validity of DP and DS longitudinally, as well as examine effective ways to more effectively target DP with exposure therapy.

Don't Know Much about Bumblebees?-A Study about Secondary School Students' Knowledge and Attitude Shows Educational Demand

Many insects are threatened with extinction, which in the case of pollinating insects could lead to declining pollination services and reduced ecosystem biodiversity. This necessitates rethinking how we deal with nature in general. Schools are ideal places in which to instill a willingness to behave in an environmentally-friendly way. Whereas scientific studies and school textbooks stress the importance of honeybees as pollinators, the role of bumblebees is either underestimated or neglected. The aim of this study was to provide information concerning student knowledge and attitudes, which are important factors of an individual's environmental awareness. A questionnaire with closed and open questions was developed, which also included drawing and species identification tasks. We surveyed 870 German secondary school students between 9 and 20 years of age. Our results indicate limited knowledge of bumblebees by students of all grades. Knowledge increased with higher grades but only with a small effect size. The attitude of students towards bumblebees was generally positive; however, this positivity declined with increasing grade of the participants. This correlation also had a small effect size. Our results are discussed, with a particular focus on future educational demand.

Individual perception of bees: Between perceived danger and willingness to protect

The current loss of biodiversity has found its way into the media. Especially the loss of bees as pollinators has recently received much attention aiming to increase public awareness about the consequence of pollinator loss and strategies for protection. However, pollinating insects like bees often prompt considerable anxiety. Negative emotions such as fear and disgust often lead to lack of support for conservation and appropriate initiatives for protection. Our study monitored perceptions of bees in the contexts of conservation and danger bees possibly represent by applying a semantic differential using contrasting adjectives under the heading "I think bees are…". Additionally, open questions were applied to examine individual perceptions of danger and conservation of bees. Respondents were students from primary school, secondary school and university. We compared these novices (n = 499) to experts (beekeepers, n = 153). An exploratory factor analysis of the semantic differential responses yielded three major oblique factors: Interest, Danger and Conservation & Usefulness. The inter-correlations of these factors were significant. Although all subgroups showed an overall high willingness to protect bees, the perception of danger scored medium. The individual experience of bee stings was the most prevalent reason for expressing fear. Educational programs focusing on pollinator conservation may reduce the perceived danger through removing misinformation, and supporting interest in the species. Based on the overall positive attitude toward bees, we suggest introducing bees (e.g., Apis mellifera) as a flagship species for pollinator conservation.

The Youth Anxiety Measure for DSM-5 (YAM-5): Development and First Psychometric Evidence of a New Scale for Assessing Anxiety Disorders Symptoms of Children and Adolescents

The Youth Anxiety Measure for DSM-5 (YAM-5) is a new self- and parent-report questionnaire to assess anxiety disorder symptoms in children and adolescents in terms of the contemporary classification system. International panels of childhood anxiety researchers and clinicians were used to construct a scale consisting of two parts: part one consists of 28 items and measures the major anxiety disorders including separation anxiety disorder, selective mutism, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder, whereas part two contains 22 items that focus on specific phobias and (given its overlap with situational phobias) agoraphobia. In general, the face validity of the new scale was good; most of its items were successfully linked to the intended anxiety disorders. Notable exceptions were the selective mutism items, which were frequently considered as symptoms of social anxiety disorder, and some specific phobia items especially of the natural environment, situational and other type, that were regularly assigned to an incorrect category. A preliminary investigation of the YAM-5 in non-clinical (N = 132) and clinically referred (N = 64) children and adolescents indicated that the measure was easy to complete by youngsters. In addition, support was found for the psychometric qualities of the measure: that is, the internal consistency was good for both parts, as well as for most of the subscales, the parent-child agreement appeared satisfactory, and there was also evidence for the validity of the scale. The YAM-5 holds promise as a tool for assessing anxiety disorder symptoms in children and adolescents.

Effect of risk information exposure on consumers' responses to foods with insect contamination

This study explores the impact that scientific information about insect contamination of food has on consumer perceptions. Participants (n = 320, Japanese consumers) were randomly assigned to 1 of 8 information-type conditions: (1) information about insect type, (2) information about contamination processes, (3) information about the safety of contaminated food, (4, 5, 6) combinations of 2 of (1), (2), and (3) above, (7) all information, and (8) no-information, and asked to rate their valuation, behavioral intention, and attitude toward food with insect contamination. Results demonstrated that some combinations of scientific information that include the safety of the contaminated food are effective to reduce consumers' compulsive rejection of insect contamination in food, whereas the single presentation of information about insect type increases consumers' explicit rejection of both the contaminated product and the manufacturer. These findings have implications for the coordination of risk communication strategies.

Fear makes you stronger: responding to feared animal targets in visual search

To investigate whether fear affects the strength with which responses are made, 12 animal-fearful individuals (five snake fearful and seven spider fearful) were instructed to decide as quickly as possible whether an animal target from a deviant category was present in a 3 × 4 item (animal) search array. The animal categories were snakes, spiders, and cats. Response force was measured, in newtons. The results showed that the strength of the response was greater when the feared animal served as the target than when it served as the distractors. This finding was corroborated by evoked heart rate changes to the stimuli. Our findings strengthen the argument that focused attention on a single, feared animal can lead to increases in manual force.

Gender, gender roles, and anxiety: perceived confirmability of self report, behavioral avoidance, and physiological reactivity

Despite the well-documented gender effect in anxiety, less is known about contributing factors to women's greater risk for anxiety and fears. The present study examined the relationship between gender, gender role orientation (i.e., expressivity/instrumentality) and fear of harmless insects (tarantula), using a multimodal approach of self-report measures, a Behavioral Approach Test (BAT), and physiological reactivity. Participants (144 college students; 67 women, 77 men) completed a questionnaire packet and then were instructed to approach a tarantula. We were unable to replicate Pierce and Kirkpatrick's (1992) findings that men underreport anxiety. Consistent with the literature, women in the study experienced greater anxiety and avoidance compared to men. However, men and women did not differ on physiological reactivity during the first 2 min of the BAT. The concordance across avoidance, anxiety and heart rate reactivity differed by gender, suggesting that men and women have different experiences when faced with a fearful object. Furthermore, instrumentality (masculinity) was negatively related to anticipatory anxiety for women but not for men.

Subjective anxiety and behavioral avoidance: Gender, gender role, and perceived confirmability of self-report

Commonly reported gender effects for differential vulnerability for anxiety may relate to gender socialization processes. The present study examined the relationship between gender role and fear under experimental conditions designed to elicit accurate fear reporting. Undergraduate students (N=119) completed several self-report measures and a behavioral avoidance task (BAT) with a tarantula while wearing a heart rate monitor. Gender roles were operationalized as instrumentality and expressiveness, as measured by the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975). As expected, women reported greater subjective anxiety and were more avoidant of the tarantula than men. Regardless of gender, low levels of instrumentality were associated with greater avoidance of the tarantula. The hypothesis that men underreport fear compared to women and that gender role differences underlie this reporting bias was not supported. In spite of a ceiling effect on the BAT, results of this study confirm the relevance of gender role in understanding gender effects in fear and anxiety.

Brave men and timid women? A review of the gender differences in fear and anxiety

Substantial evidence indicates that women report greater fear and are more likely to develop anxiety disorders than men. Women's greater vulnerability for anxiety disorders can be partly understood by examining gender differences in the etiological factors known to contribute to anxiety. This review examines evidence for gender differences across a broad range of relevant factors, including biological influences, temperamental factors, stress and trauma, cognitive factors, and environmental factors. Gender differences are observed with increasing consistency as the scope of analysis broadens to molar levels of functioning. Socialization processes cultivate and promote processes related to anxiety, and moderate gender differences across levels of analysis.

Fear, but not fear-relevance, modulates reaction times in visual search with animal distractors

The research aimed at examining attentional selectivity in a visual search paradigm using pictures of animals that have provided a recurrent threat in an evolutionary perspective (i.e., snakes and spiders) and pictures of animals that have supposedly posed no such threat (i.e., cats and fish). Experiment 1 showed no advantage of fear-relevant stimuli over non-fear-relevant animal stimuli. However, an attentional capture seemed to emerge as a delay in the disengagement of attention, specifically when there was a massive presentation of fear-relevant stimuli in the array. The results from Experiment 2, where participants were selected based specifically on their fear of either snakes or spiders (but not both), showed a preferential processing of the congruent feared stimulus, when compared with non-fearful participants, which strengthens the notion that fear significance may be an important factor drawing attention to a particular spatial location.

The relationship between disgust sensitivity, anxiety and obsessions

Three hundred participants, including volunteers from an obsessional support group, filled in questionnaires relating to disgust sensitivity, health anxiety, anxiety, fear of death, fear of contamination and obsessionality as part of an investigation into the involvement of disgust sensitivity in types of obsessions. Overall, the data supported the hypothesis that a relationship does exist between disgust sensitivity and the targeted variables. A significant predictive relationship was found between disgust sensitivity and total scores on the obsessive compulsive inventory (OCI; Psychological Assessment 10 (1998) 206) for both frequency and distress of symptomatology. Disgust sensitivity scores were significantly related to health anxiety scores and general anxiety scores and to all the obsessional subscales, with the exception of hoarding. Additionally, multiple regression analyses revealed that disgust sensitivity may be more specifically related to washing compulsions: frequency of washing behaviour was best predicted by disgust sensitivity scores. Washing distress scores were best predicted by health anxiety scores, though disgust sensitivity entered in the second model. It is suggested that further research on the relationship between disgust sensitivity and obsessionality could be helpful in refining the theoretical understanding of obsessions.

Bio-phobias/techno-philias: virtual reality exposure as treatment for phobias of 'nature'

In modern society natural objects like spiders or snakes have a primary role as the loci of specific phobias. Drawing on interviews with members of the UK National Phobics Society (NPS) and associated service providers, this paper explores the implications of the increasingly significant role played by new media, particularly Virtual Reality technologies, in the treatment of these 'bio-phobias'. While advanced technological approaches provide new possibilities for individual sufferers to experiment with and control their phobic responses they also exemplify certain aspects of those specifically modern social relations that are the media within which bio-phobic behaviours develop. From a critical sociological perspective the techno-philic move to the medium of cyber-space may actually exaggerate characteristically modern social relations that seek (but never convincingly manage) to assert complete 'cultural' control over the unpredictable 'natural' elements threatening our cultural integrity.

The role of disgust in faintness elicited by blood and injection stimuli

To examine the role of disgust in blood-injection fear and faintness, 79 individuals high and low in disgust and distressed either more by blood or injections were exposed to both a blood slide and a needle slide. Self-reported faintness and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were measured. High disgust individuals reported more faintness to both slides, but those who were more distressed by blood reported more faintness to the blood slide and those who were more distressed by needles reported more fear to the needle slide. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure assessments manifested a diphasic response. The diphasic response pattern was most evident among the high disgust subjects, who were more distressed by blood than injections. Results are discussed in terms of the relevance of disgust in the etiology of fear and faintness in blood-injury phobia.