Abstract
According to the fear module theory, humans are evolutionarily predisposed to perceive snakes as prioritized stimuli and exhibit a fast emotional and behavioral response toward them. In Europe, highly dangerous snake species are distributed almost exclusively in the Mediterranean and Caspian areas. While the risk of a snakebite is relatively low in Central Europe, Azerbaijan, on the other hand, has a high occurrence of the deadly venomous Levant viper (Macrovipera lebetina). We hypothesize that co-habitation with this dangerous snake has shaped the way in which humans evaluate snake species resembling it. For that purpose, we asked respondents from the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan to rank photographs depicting 36 snake species according to perceived fear and beauty. The results revealed a high cross-cultural agreement in both evaluations (fear r2 = 0.683, p < 0.0001; beauty: r2 = 0.816, p < 0.0001). Snakes species eliciting higher fear tend to be also perceived as more beautiful, yet people are able to clearly distinguish between these two dimensions. Deadly venomous snakes representing a serious risk are perceived as highly fearful. This is especially true for the vipers and allies (pit vipers) possessing a characteristic body shape with a distinct triangular head and thick body, which was found as the most fear evoking by respondents from both countries. Although the attitude toward snakes is more negative among the respondents from Azerbaijan, their fear evaluation is similar to the Czechs. For instance, despite co-habitation with the Levant viper, it was not rated by the Azerbaijanis as more fearful than other dangerous snakes. In conclusion, agreement in the evaluation of snake fear and beauty is cross-culturally high and relative fear attributed to selected snake species is not directly explainable by the current environmental and cultural differences. This may provide some support for the evolutionary hypothesis of preparedness to fear snakes.
Highlights
Detection and an appropriate reaction to dangerous animals and other life threatening stimuli were necessary for human survival (Barkow, 1992; New et al, 2007)
The major portion of variability in the data explains high similarity in fear 65% perception of snakes in the Czech Republic compared to Azerbaijan, the two countries with considerably different risks of envenoming
The rest of the variability reflects the differences that should be accounted to some respondents’ individual characteristics
Summary
Detection and an appropriate reaction to dangerous animals and other life threatening stimuli were necessary for human survival (Barkow, 1992; New et al, 2007). Throughout the course of evolutionary history venomous snakes presented a real threat (Öhman and Mineka, 2001; Öhman et al, 2001; Isbell, 2006; LoBue and DeLoache, 2010; LoBue and Rakison, 2013) requiring a rapid detection This drove human ancestors to evolve attentional bias to snakes and similar survival endangering stimuli (Lipp and Waters, 2007). This has been demonstrated in visual search tasks when both adults, as well as 3-year-old children, visually detected snakes more rapidly than other kinds of stimuli (LoBue and DeLoache, 2011). High attentional bias combined with innate (Weiss et al, 2015) or learned fear of snakes (Mineka et al, 1980; Cook et al, 1985; Cook and Mineka, 1989) in many primates including humans allow for quick associations between snake cues in the environment and an appropriate behavioral reaction to the imminent threat (Van Le et al, 2013; LoBue, 2014)
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