Ophidiophobia (), or ophiophobia (), is

fear Fear is an unpleasant emotion that arises in response to perception, perceived dangers or threats. Fear causes physiological and psychological changes. It may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the ...

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

s. It is sometimes called by the more general term herpetophobia, fear of

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

s. The word comes from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

words "ophis" (), snake, and "phobia" () meaning fear.

Research

About one-third of adult humans have a fear of snakes, making it one of the most commonly reported phobias. However, adults manifesting "clinically relevant" ophidiophobia accounts for only about 3–4% of the population. In ''The Handbook of the Emotions'' (1993), psychologist

Arne Öhman Arne Öhman (31 May 1943 – 19 March 2020) was a Swedish psychologist who served as professor of psychology at the Karolinska Institute from 1993 to 2010, where he was the head of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience from 2001 to 2004. He pre ...

studied pairing an unconditioned stimulus with evolutionarily-relevant fear-response neutral

stimuli A stimulus is something that causes a physiological response. It may refer to: *Stimulation **Stimulus (physiology), something external that influences an activity **Stimulus (psychology), a concept in behaviorism and perception *Stimulus (economi ...

(

s and

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

s) versus evolutionarily-irrelevant fear-response neutral stimuli (

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the n ...

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s, physical representation of

polyhedra In geometry, a polyhedron (: polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional figure with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. The term "polyhedron" may refer either to a solid figure or to its boundary su ...

firearm A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...

s, and electrical outlets) on human subjects and found that ophidiophobia and

arachnophobia Arachnophobia is the fear of spiders and other arachnids such as scorpions and ticks. The word "arachnophobia" comes from the Greek words arachne and phobia. Signs and symptoms People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they b ...

required only one pairing to develop a conditioned response while mycophobia, anthophobia,

phobia A phobia is an anxiety disorder, defined by an irrational, unrealistic, persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected ...

s of physical representations of polyhedra, firearms, and electrical outlets required multiple pairings and went

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

without continued conditioning while the conditioned ophidiophobia and arachnophobia were permanent. Similarly, psychologists Susan Mineka, Richard Keir, and Veda Price found that laboratory-raised

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally brown or g ...

s did not display fear if required to reach across a toy snake to receive a banana unless the macaque was shown a video of another macaque withdrawing in fright from the toy (which produced a permanent fear-response), while being shown a similar video of another macaque displaying fear of a flower produced no similar response. Psychologist

Paul Ekman Paul Ekman (born February 15, 1934) is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He was ranked 59th out of t ...

cites this anecdote by

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

in ''

The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ''The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals'' is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following ''On the Origin of Species'' (1859) and '' The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex'' (1871). Initially in ...

'' (1872) in connection with Öhman's research: Psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse notes that while conditioned fear responses to evolutionarily novel dangers such as electrical outlets is possible, the conditioning is slower because such cues have no prewired connection to fear, and that despite the emphasis on the risks of

speeding Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed, expre ...

and

drunk driving Drunk driving (or drink-driving in British English) is the act of driving under the influence of alcohol. A small increase in the blood alcohol content increases the relative risk of a motor vehicle crash. In the United States, alcohol is in ...

driver's education Driver's education, also known as driver's ed, driving education, driver training, or driving lessons, is a formal class or program that prepares a new driver to obtain a learner's permit or driver's license. The formal class program may also p ...

, it does not provide reliable protection against

traffic collision A traffic collision, also known as a motor vehicle collision, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other moving or stationary obstruction, such as a tree, pole or building. Tr ...

s and that nearly one-quarter of all deaths in 2014 of people aged 15 to 24 in the United States were in traffic collisions. Also, Nesse, psychiatrist

Isaac Marks Isaac Meyer Marks (born 1935) was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He trained in medicine there, qualifying in 1956. His training as a psychiatrist began in 1960 at the University of London (at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, Bethlem-Maudsley Hospital) ...

, and evolutionary biologist George C. Williams wrote that people with systematically deficient responses to adaptive phobias (e.g. ophidiophobia, arachnophobia, basophobia) are more temperamentally careless and more likely to receive unintentional injuries that are potentially fatal and have proposed that such deficient phobia should be classified as "hypophobia" due to its selfish genetic consequences. A 2001 study at the

Karolinska Institute The Karolinska Institute (KI; ; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden and one of the foremost medical research institutes globally ...

in Sweden suggested that mammals may have an innate negative reaction to snakes ( and spiders), which was vital for their survival as it allowed such threats to be identified immediately. A 2009 report of a 40-year research program demonstrated strong fear conditioning to snakes in humans and fast nonconscious processing of snake images; these are mediated by a fear network in the human brain involving the

amygdala The amygdala (; : amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek language, Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is a paired nucleus (neuroanatomy), nuclear complex present in the Cerebral hemisphere, cerebral hemispheres of vertebrates. It is c ...

. A 2013 study provided neurobiological evidence in primates (

macaques The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe (in Gibraltar). Macaques are principally fru ...

) of natural selection for detecting snakes rapidly.

In fiction

In non-medical press and literature, the movie-character

Indiana Jones ''Indiana Jones'' is an American media franchise consisting of five films and a prequel television series, along with games, comics, and tie-in novels, that depicts the adventures of Indiana Jones (character), Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, ...

has been used as an example of someone with ophidiophobia.

References

{{Evolutionary psychology Zoophobias Snakes