People who handle snakes or spiders regularly are needed for an upcoming University of Queensland study.
According to UQ researcher Helena Purkis, snakes and spiders are often at the centre of irrational fears.
Her study is investigating whether fear of snakes and spiders is the result of evolution or is a learned behaviour.
“Some say this phobia stems from our ancient ancestors for whom snakes and spiders were daily threats," Dr Purkis said.
"However, people also learn about snakes and spiders from an early age from parents and friends, the media and many other sources.
“So irrational fears may reflect the accumulation of a person's learning across their own lifetime rather than a genetically transmitted preparedness.
“Researching people who handle snakes or spiders frequently can hold the key to uncovering how and why these creatures seem special.
“In our previous work we showed that people who work with snakes and spiders do not have an automatic, negative reaction to snakes and spiders, unless they are particularly dangerous (for example, taipan snakes and funnel web spiders).
“The current project is aimed at examining whether people who have plenty of experience with handling snakes or spiders respond differently to them than do less experienced people.
“If we find support for our learning explanation then we will be able to design more effective interventions for people who suffer from irrational anxieties as well as design prevention programs.”
Participants will be required to complete a set of computer tasks involving pictures of snakes and spiders. The tasks take approximately two hours and compensation for time and travel costs is available.
For information about participating in the study, please contact Fear Research (telephone 07 3346 7282, email: fear@uq.edu.au)
