SNK

Wariness Around Snakes

Class: I - Natural Selection

EPA Total Score: 37 /100

Öhman, A., & Soares, J. J. F. (1994). “Unconscious anxiety”: Phobic responses to masked stimuli. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 231–240.

Abstract: Tested the hypothesis that an unconscious preattentive perceptual analysis of phobic stimuli is sufficient to elicit human fear responses. Selected snake- and spider-fearful Ss, as well as normal controls, were exposed to pictures of snakes, spiders, flowers, and mushrooms. A separate forced-choice recognition experiment established backward masking conditions that effectively precluded recognition of experimental stimuli both for fearful and nonfearful Ss. In the main experiment, these conditions were used to compare skin conductance responses (SCRs) to masked and nonmasked phobic and control pictures among fearful and nonfearful Ss. In support of the hypotheses, snake- and spider-fearful Ss showed elevated SCRs to snake and spider pictures as compared with neutral pictures and with responses of the nonfearful Ss under both masking conditions. Ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance indicated that the fearful Ss felt more negative, more aroused, and less dominant in relation to both masked and nonmasked phobic stimuli.

DJGlass


Supporting Evidence

30/100

Submitted by DJGlass

35/100

Submitted by DJGlass

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Medical evidence for this EPA.

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Supporting Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is an Evolved Psychological Adaptation (EPA) - i.e., that it has been shaped by natural selection to solve a particular adaptive problem.

Challenging Evidence

0/100

Submitted by DJGlass

0/100

Submitted by DJGlass

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Medical evidence for this EPA.

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Physiological evidence for this EPA.

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Cross-Cultural evidence for this EPA.

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Genetic evidence for this EPA.

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Phylogenetic evidence for this EPA.

No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.

Challenging Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is not an EPA - e.g., that it is a product of cultural learning or genetic drift, or maybe it does not exist at all. However over each line of evidence for a description.