Fear of snakes may date to evolution in Africa

“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and, furthermore, always carry a small snake.” W. C. Fields

When a woman teams up with a snake, a moral storm threatens somewhere.” Said of Cleopatra.

Should we fear snakes? Can we be too scared of snakes?

Recently, I put these, and other, questions about snakes to Gordon M. Burghardt, Ph.D. Dr. Burghardt is the Alumni Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee.

Dr. Burghardt first directed me to a 2013 article he wrote about the fear of snakes. That article included a brochure about “Common snake myths.”

What are these snake myths? You have a better chance of being killed by falling (I in 163 odds), of being killed by bees (1 in 79,842 odds) or of being killed by lightening (1 in 134,906 odds) than of being killed by a snake. It seems only about five people die because of a snake bite each year in our country. (This information has either lessened your fear of snakes or added falling, bees and lightening to your phobia list.)

Speaking of phobias, what exactly is the name for a fear of or phobia about snakes, I asked Dr. Burghardt? He said it was called “ophidiophobia.”

Other common snake myths include the belief that snakes are aggressive. Dr. Burghardt referred me to a 2002 article in the New England Journal of Medicine. That fascinating article noted that most snakebites are on the arm or hand (89 percent), and males are most bitten. These males, ages 17 to 27, are very often intoxicated when they try to “handle, harm or kill” a snake.

Dr. Burghardt co-authored a chapter on “Combating Ophiophobia” in the 2009 scholarly book Snakes: Ecology and Conservation. He notes that snakes have figured in the religious practices of many religions and have been revered by many cultures.

Christian, Jewish and Islamic religions, in time, came to suppress snake worship. Pockets of handling snakes in religious services continue in certain sections of our country, namely Appalachia. Dr. Burghardt has attended and studied these snake-handling services. His findings and opinions on snake handlers will be explored in my next week’s column.

Dr. Burghardt noted that there is a probable evolutionary predisposition to fearing snakes in humans.

Snakes do actions that might provoke fear in another animal. Snakes can be abrupt, move rapidly, seem unfamiliar and have an intense colorful appearance to another animal.

Dr. Burghardt notes that humans evolved in Africa, where venomous snakes are common. He writes that “there are no simple rules for visually discriminating harmless from truly dangerous snakes. Thus, detecting and indiscriminately avoiding all snakes was probably favored by natural selection.”

Dr. Burghardt shares with us the possibility that there are “fear modules” in our brains that are “evolutionarily derived.” If the appropriate stimuli come along (such as a snake), a fear response can be activated. This is called “prepared recognition.”

An interesting 2008 research finding shows this pattern. Children, as young as three years of age, can detect a snake among flowers on a computer screen, faster than they could detect the flowers.

These facts about snakes do not necessarily support our attitudes and behaviors toward them. In next week’s column, Dr. Burghardt and I will share how snakes are cruelly treated around the world, such as in rattlesnake roundups in our Southwestern states. I will also explore how snake phobias are treated by psychologists.

Snakes feel pain, though they do not vocalize pain. For this reason, Dr. Burghardt notes, they are “deserving of moral consideration.”

Philip Kronk, M.S., Ph.D. is a semi-retired child and adult clinical psychologist and child and adult clinical neuropsychologist. Dr. Kronk has a doctorate in clinical psychology and a post-doctoral degree in clinical psychopharmacology. His year-long internship in clinical psychology was served at the University of Colorado Medical School. Dr. Kronk writes a weekly, Friday, online column for the Knoxville News Sentinel’s website, knoxnews.com. He can be reached at (865) 330-3633.