Article Review: Rakison's Study on Fear of Snakes and Spiders

This report is an article review of David H. Rakison's study, "Does women's greater fear of snakes and spiders originate in infancy?" The article explores the hypothesis that women's increased fear of snakes and spiders may have roots in infancy. Rakison's research used experiments involving 11-month-old infants, exposing them to images of snakes, spiders, mushrooms, and flowers paired with happy or fearful facial expressions. The results indicate that female infants, but not males, rapidly associate negative facial emotions with fear-relevant stimuli like snakes and spiders. The review highlights the study's methodology, findings, and its implications for understanding fear learning, phobias, and the potential existence of an evolved fear mechanism in humans, suggesting a possible genetic basis for this behavior in women for child protection. The review also addresses the limitations of the study, particularly regarding the interpretation of infant facial reactions and the challenges in generalizing from these observations.

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

AN ARTICLE REVIEW
In the article “Does women’s greater fear of snakes and spiders originate in infancy?”,
the author Rakison (2009) has put forward the fear women faces when encountered with spiders
and snakes. The author tries to find about the concern that women have; the question arises like
is that an acquired phobia or childhood phobia. From studies conducted previously, it was found
that adult human and animals learns to fear spiders and snakes faster than mushroom or plants.
The background of the study discusses the fear of learning of specific threats. The author
points out that it is crucial for learning about fear from specific threats which has enabled with
the development of emotional mechanism, as it has hard to be adaptive to learn from the
potential risks like a snake or spider bites. Moreover, the author also holds up the sex-oriented
differences while it comes to fear and phobias. This fear is likely to be found more in women
over evolutionary time, being exposed to nature more food gathering and child care.
The author has discussed experiments that were conducted to find out the results. In trial
one, tests were performed on infants with the help of a visual habituation paradigm, which had a
switch design. Ten infant boys and ten girl infants participated in the experiment. Participants
were made to see four-colour photographs of snakes and spiders or mushroom and flowers along
with one happy emotion and one with a nervous feeling for not less than 7 seconds. Experiment 2
was identical to 1 except one change. This time infants were shown the only stimulus related to
fear irrelevant (mushroom or flowers) while it was paired with either happy or a fearful
schematic faces.
The author discusses the combined result of the experiments. The result showed that an
infant female learns the relation between negative facial expression and fear-relevant stimuli
(snakes and spiders). Although, in case of stimuli of fear irrelevant (mushroom and flowers), the

AN ARTICLE REVIEW
same effects were not found. The analyses of the data instead suggested female infants require a
shorter span of exposures to such stimulus when compared to male. Female infants that were
subjected to scary facial reaction and a recurring risk, were looking for prolong period at the
pictures of snake and spider when it was shown with a sad facial reaction in compare to
mushroom or flower when paired with same facial passion.
The author also provides an insight of the approaches which were taken in this article for
the limitation of development of evolved mechanism in adults too. The author points out that this
behaviour is something that has been passed on genetically in women for the adaptation of child
protection from the wild. Future research could provide some new findings regarding the
stimulus learnings.
It is not always possible to understand a person’s perspective just from the facial reaction.
The experiments are only based on that alone. It is tough to figure it comes to infants. Thus the
trials stand on the foundations recognising infants facial reaction made when the analysis is
conducted, making it biased. This misrepresentation can be recognised from the article.