Are you afraid of creepy crawlies?

[Homo Insapiens]

& if so, which ones scare you & why?

I hate bugs, & cockroaches have to be the top of the list for me. It’s not just a small fear, it's more like a genuine phobia. Who else can relate here?

From what I can tell, fear of creepy crawlies seems to be very common. Maybe that reflects something about human nature. How well documented is fear of creepy crawlies throughout history?

People seem to vary in how much they fear the crawlies. Some people don't fear them at all, I know some people who can even catch them with their hands, yet I also know people who are terrified of them like me.

What’s the psychology behind bear of creepy crawlies? Any evolutionary explanation for it? I wonder how logical it is? Bugs like cockroaches don’t seem to be the most dangerous creatures around. Sure cockroaches can carry germs, but a bad case of food poisoning is probably the worst it can get if a roach crawls across your food. Mosquitoes as carriers of disease are far more dangerous, yet people don’t seem to fear mosquitoes the same way they fear roaches.

Some of this fear probably depends on experience & familiarity with said crawlies, but I’m guessing there’s probably also something innate about it as well to human nature.

[Cybele]

Are you afraid of creepy crawlies?& if so, which ones scare you & why?
I've lived most of my life in urban areas, so I very rarely came into contact with lizards, frogs, snakes and so on. In my country there are not so many venomous snakes and spiders. I’m somewhat afraid and wary of snakes, but not terrified (as I know the chances of meeting a venomous viper are quite small).
Cockroaches disgust me, I would not say I’m properly afraid by them though. I’m startled by the fact can appear suddenly, move very fast and run erratically (sometimes towards you) and I certainly don’t like any to touch me. I’m most ok with daddy long-legs spiders, I never kill them.
During childhood I was really afraid of earwigs, because of their pincers and because I’ve been told they can crawl into the human ears. There was this big hazelnut bush in my grandparent’s garden, and I was always scared to pick up hazelnuts from it, as there were plenty of earwigs lurking on its branches. I don’t carry the amount of fear towards them anymore, but still I have some dislike (purely for the way they look).


How well documented is fear of creepy crawlies throughout history?
I believe the fear of creepy crawlies has been studied in more recent years. But there is some info about aversion to certain crawling insects from history: maybe not so much fear, as disgust. However, the attitude towards cockroaches, snakes, and so on, varies from culture to culture.

In Egypt, spells have been found on the carved scarabs which were buried with the dead. One such spell seeks Khnum's help in driving away cockroaches during the soul's journey to Du'at, stating ''Be far from me, O vile cockroach, for I am the god Khnum'

In ancient Greece, the cockroach might have been known by the name silphe. The Scholiast in the ''Peace" of Aristophanes says the sifphe is an ill-smelling insect. Aetius speaks of "the fat of the stinking silphe which inhabits houses." The epigrammatist Evenus speaks of the sifphe of the booksellers' shops, and applies to it the epithets: page eating, destructive, black-bodied. To Romans it might have been known as blatta. Pliny speaks of the disgusting nature of this insect, one kind of which is known by the name of Myloecon, and found in mills. In another place Pliny says, "It is the nature of the blatta to seek dark corners and to avoid the light ; they are very often found in baths."

Greek farmers beseeched the gods to protect them from destructive insects.



Any evolutionary explanation for it?
Most probably. As individuals who avoided contact to potentially dangerous snakes, poisonous bugs & frogs, etc. had a higher rate of survival. Over the time, the brain evolved into having these defensive circuits. The amygdala which sits on the front of the memory systems of the hippocampus plays a role in determining how dangerous something is for us, thus helping with survival


Some of this fear probably depends on experience & familiarity with said crawlies, but I’m guessing there’s probably also something innate about it as well to human nature.

Apparently, we are naturally more alert towards spiders and snakes, but do not carry innate fear towards them. However, we also evolved to learn vicariously, from other humans behavior, experiences (especially closed ones). Children are also very curious. He or she might grab an insect, a lizard, or a frog but if he/she gets bitten, will associate this experience with pain. But also will learn to be fearful, if a parent, becomes panicked and screams not to touch the insect, reptile, etc. Or the child might imitate the behavior and learn to be fearful if he/she sees parents or other people acting frightened by the crawlies.


In one study, (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721410388801) the Rutgers University professor showed eight- to fourteen-month-old infants a series of photographs. By tracking the infants’ eye movements, she found they noticed photographs of snakes more quickly than those of flowers, suggesting the human brain, like the monkey’s, is primed to view these creatures differently. However, the infants didn’t appear afraid of these creatures, because they didn’t cry or show any other evidence of distress. That’s an important distinction, LoBue says, because it confirms we likely possess a natural alertness toward spiders and snakes, which could predispose us to become afraid of them later in life, but we don’t naturally fear them.