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Comment by csallen | Hacker News Reader

I've always found this interesting because nothing about the appearance of a snake has ever bothered me, unsettled me, or made me fearful. They actually look very neat to me, and the tiny snakes I've had the fortune of holding were very fun to feel slithering about in my hands.

Cockroaches on the hand, not scary at all, but I feel disgusted by them.

And large spiders, extremely scary to me, instant fear response.

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It's the exact same for me. The spiders are by far the most visceral fear response, especially if a gruesomely detailed photo pops up on my phone.

Smaller spiders scared me when I was younger, but I have overcome that phobia significantly. Large, hairy, distinctly arthropodic spiders, though...? Yuck.

Question for both you and GPP; is this fear limited to real life depictions, or basically anything? E.g, if you ever played Skyrim or a game with spider-like enemies does it have the same effect as a real spider?

Answers I've seen to this question tend to vary wildly.

I'm also really afraid of snakes, but spiders are okay. Movies with snakes are quite painful to watch too, and I'm very uncomfortable with snakes in video games, but at least I have some control (compared to TV) so it's a significantly better experience

Spider-fear has never been triggered by fictional spiders for me. Very few works ever bother getting the face and body right though. 8 legs alone are not scary for me, the fangs and eyes and color patterns and the sneaky movement and webs are scary.

I'm not terribly afraid of real spiders though. Hairy crawling spiders like wolf spiders and tarantulas don't really bother me at all. It's the ones with the big web-spinning butts that dangle and drop down from above that make me go straight into fight-or-flight.

I did play Skyrim, and I was fine with it. Something about video games takes the fear out of it. I mean, they're definitely a little bit more unsettling than other video game creatures, but not by much, so I don't get a fear response. I'd react more to a "jump scare" in a game than a 3D spider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_RpgSKxjwk

Interesting watch about what babies fear.

I believe that things like fear of needles is something passed on from parents.

It’s weird that I’m the opposite. Spiders of any size have absolutely no effect on me. But snakes trigger some sort of innate response. I wonder if it’s tied to geographic origins of our ancestors?

I have no idea. I do not fear any of them, but I would fear some in real life were they near me, but only because I know they might be able to kill me.

Cockroaches are just, like someone else said, disgusting to me, especially if they are at home. If they are outside I could not be bothered.

I'd guess it's due to some kind of imprinting during childhood, similar to taste. The widespread prevalence of irrational phobias and methods for curing them certainly suggest to my untrained eye a learned behavior rather than innate.

I have all the same responses as you, heh. Centipedes also give me that instant creepy-crawly feeling.

And when I see a cockroach fly the disgust is multiplied by like ten.

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