Article Review: Analysis of BBC News Article on Spider Fear Research

This report provides an in-depth review of a BBC News article discussing a study on the fear of spiders, particularly focusing on gender differences. The study, conducted in the USA, suggested a potential genetic aversion to dangerous animals like spiders in women, a trait possibly inherited from hunter-gatherer ancestors. The review examines the media report's presentation of the study, including its methodology involving baby girls and boys exposed to spider and flower images paired with different facial expressions. It critically analyzes the report's interpretation of the results, highlighting potential misrepresentations and oversimplifications. The review also addresses the limitations of the study and the cautiousness required in interpreting the results, emphasizing the need to differentiate between innate and learned fears. The report questions the media's overstatement of the findings and their impact on the readers. The review concludes by critiquing the media's portrayal of the study's conclusions and its implications regarding gender-specific emotional responses.

Running head- AN ARTICLE REVIEW
An Article Review
Name of the student
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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.