Slithering snakes, angry men and out-group members: What and whom are we evolved to fear?

Abstract

The preparedness theory of classical conditioning proposed by Seligman (1970, 1971) has been applied extensively over the past 40 years to explain the nature and “source” of human fear and phobias. In this review we examine the formative studies that tested the four defining characteristics of prepared learning with animal fear-relevant stimuli (typically snakes and spiders) and consider claims that fear of social stimuli, such as angry faces, or faces of racial out-group members, may also be acquired utilising the same preferential learning mechanism. Exposition of critical differences between fear learning to animal and social stimuli suggests that a single account cannot adequately explain fear learning with animal and social stimuli. We demonstrate that fear conditioned to social stimuli is less robust than fear conditioned to animal stimuli as it is susceptible to cognitive influence and propose that it may instead reflect on negative stereotypes and social norms. Thus, a theoretical model that can accommodate the influence of both biological and cultural factors is likely to have broader utility in the explanation of fear and avoidance responses than accounts based on a single mechanism.

Keywords:

• Phobia
• Preparedness
• Fear relevance
• Conditioning

Notes

¹ A parallel line of research utilised fearful rather than angry faces in the investigation of prepared learning with social fear-relevant stimuli (e.g., Orr & Lanzetta, 1980). However, these studies did not employ a differential conditioning paradigm to separate unconditional from conditional effects of fearful faces or did not assess directly whether fear conditioned to fearful faces fulfils the criteria for prepared learning and will thus not be reviewed in detail.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grant number DP120100750 from the Australian Research Council.