Genetic Transmission of Fear: Examining the Link Between Women and Fear of Life-Threatening Animals

In this article we will discuss about an article review and below are the summaries point:- The article discusses a test conducted in the USA suggesting that fear of life-threatening animals is passed on genetically through generations. The media report provides insight into Dr. David Rakison's experiment, where baby boys and girls were shown spider images to measure their facial expressions. The media report misrepresents the findings of the experiment, over-interpreting the results and delivering a false message to readers.

Running head- AN ARTICLE REVIEW
An Article Review
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s Note

AN ARTICLE REVIEW
A news article 'Girls born with a fear of spiders' was published in BBC news on 18
October 2017. The article was about a test that was conducted in the USA, suggesting that
women are afraid of life-threatening animals, and this fear is passed on genetically over the ages.
The paper 'Does female fear of snakes and spider originate in childhood?'(2009) written by
Rakison, questions first without claiming that women are afraid of spiders by birth. Fear stimuli
are learned or adapted; it is not something you have from birth. It is quality that is developed as a
person grows up and learn. It is to be noted that a reader can reach a judgmental conclusion by
simply gazing the article title. The media report gives some insight into Dr. David Rakison's
experiment. The test was conducted on 10 baby boys and 10 baby girls. However, the media
report does not clearly state about the methodologies. It is known to form the news article that
spider images were shown to the participants so that their facial expression could be measured.
At first, pictures of a spider paired with fearful human face image were shown to the babies.
Then they were showed the same images of the spider to compare the results, but this time they
were twinned happy reaction faces. The babies were also subjected to some flower pictures along
with frightened human reaction faces.
The results of the experiments were also seen in the article. It was seen in the results that
for a long period of time girl infants were looking at the pictures of the spider paired with joyful
facial reaction. However, in the case of boy infants, both images paired with happy and fearful
faces were looked at for a significant amount of time. The results in the media report create
confusion regarding the baby girls, while boys were emotionally indifferent.
The report assigns no limitation to the experiments. From the beginning, it is unclear
about the girls that they have fear of spiders from birth and that this is passed down through
generations; ancestral especially. The nature of protecting their child has built a cautious nature

AN ARTICLE REVIEW
against animals such as snacks and spiders since the early ages. These criteria of fear learning
sometimes cannot be ancestral only.
The report from the media misrepresents the findings by over-interpreting the results of
the experiments. Scientists are generally prudent in interpreting the results of the studies they
carry out. They usually do not pass beyond reasonableness to end the research results.
Sometimes misrepresentation is done by the media report in these findings. In the experiment,
children quickly learn to differentiate between spiders and scary expressions. However, it was
not the same in case of flowers paired with the two human expressions. The experiment's data
concludes by stating a hypothesis claiming that women can be much more precise than men in
the event of an emotional yearning. Although, results do not interpret that men could not study
the relationship between scared stimulation and facial reactions. The report, however, overstated
the results of the tests, by delivering a false message to the readers.