Do you think that a fear of spiders is inborn or is a product of upbringing? It's a little of both I'm sure, but which do you think is the largest factor? Is there something ingrained in our brains that makes us afraid of creepy-crawly things, or do we learn it when people tell us that spiders bite, and when we see someone scream and violently smash a bug

weird question. I'm not afraid of spiders so can't really contribute, but I do like the movie Arachnophobia.

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Hi, A friend of mine was working in a damp cellar, and got bit mear his belt buckle . Hospital....shots, damned sore, lost 4 weeks of work, still suffering.
Hates it. Says it is no fun at all.
The worst may be day time television.
Best regards, Dan

Well call it whatever you want, fear, dislike, whatever.

If you saw a non-poisonous spider craw under your pillow, would you lay down and go to sleep? I doubt it. There's a difference in the way you think about a spider and, for example, a kitten. I'm wondering if that is some biological basis for that.

I'm scared of spiders, and I have no idea why. The funny thing is that I used to catch all kinds of insects of all sizes (including wasps!) when I was younger, but spiders still give me the creeps. How's that for illogical? Why does something with eight legs freak me out, but stuff with six has no effect on me? It does make me wonder if there's something hardwired in my system to not like them.

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Hard to untangle, but part of it may be that it is just about impossible to anthropomorphize the arachnid body plan.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

our brain reads first the appearance and its properties, then the term 'fear' comes later. if the appearance is shabby of any thing and the known properties are much adverse then brain start alert ourself to keep a distance from the thing.

secondly the rash on skin due to spider sometime create wounds too, even pus formation is also possible in some condition.

I don't know why, but I'm afraid of the things. When I know they can't or won't reach me it's no problem, but I dislike seeing one running in the house a lot.

Put me in a rocket and send me to the moon (I will be nervous of course) anytime, but don't let me in a room close to where I just saw a midsize spider run away and hide.

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Yes, I'd react differently to the spider than the kitten. I'd be far more upset about the kitten... I'm horribly allergic to cats! But, I do understand what you're talking about, I'd probably shoo the spider out of my bed as well (but I wouldn't be sneezing/wheezing while doing so). Spiders don't really bother me all that much. Basically, I think they are pretty cool little critters.

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Well, I think it's a little of both -- but I think also that it can be on an individual basis.

Why do some infants react with fear to the sight of a spider, while others will gurgle happily and try to pick it up?

I remember seeing a video in the second or third grade. . . . something akin to a public service message that's supposed to inform you of dangerous local animals. For a young child, it was a scary production. Of course, being the non-conformist that I am, I spent the rest of my life turning over rocks and logs looking for (what else?) spiders, lizards, and such. But perhaps this is where I got the uneasiness I feel when a big spider is crawing across my floor.

Spiders are not my favorite creature. . . . .but unless they're poisonous, I leave them alone when I see them. They are a predatory species after all, and who knows how many insects they kill?

The only thing for bug elimination that is better, IMHO, (and if you can stand to have them roaming around your house) are Mantids. A 6" female praying mantis will consume everything in your house smaller than herself, if left to her own devices. I used to let mine live on the drapes. They would occassionally go flying across the living room at full speed to snag a moth out of the air. Very entertaining, but most often they are ambush predators. It's rare to see a well fed mantid fly for food; they prefer to wait. I thought I would have to cage her when I got a cat. . . . .Somehow she impressed upon the cat the need to leave the mantis alone. It wouldn't go near any kind of mantid the rest of its life. Which was cool, because it sure wouldn't kill any pests. I never really saw any bugs in that house until the mantis died.

The unconscious fear of being crushed by a huge rock

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Somehow, our tiniest free roaming chicken managed to do that with the largest stray tomcat you've ever seen. I think that it was mainly because she didn't flee when seeing the cat, and hence never became a very entertaining object for a hunt. Instead, she looked him in the eyes (though from a rather safe distance ). Just saying "I've seen you already, start running and I fly up. You've lost already". They seemed to become more or less friends after a while, at least they didn't seem to have a full blown hunter-pray relation. More like "I trust you a tiny little bit".

A slightly different situations is your pet cat vs your other pets (I don't include the mantis in that, but anyway ). In my opinion, the cat notices from your behaviour that the other pets are part of the group and are of importance to you -alive- and therefore your cat will not kill your pet rabbits, birds... In general .

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I saw Bill Oddie on TV with a Dysdera the other night; he says 'there are stories that this species can bite',
then
'Ow. Ow ow! It's true, they can!'
But he still let the little creature run around on his hand after it bit him. Now that is the mark of a true nature lover.

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I had a mantis and it killed a lot of bugs. But one morning I woke to find a daddy-longleg sucking on the mantis. It had tied the mantis' hands together with web. I guess this spider's exceptional reach gave it the edge. It amazed me how the mantis could eat spiders, obviously ingesting the venom, but if bitten, it would die.

I too am afraid of spiders. Not really the ones outside that make webs in your garden, but the indoor ones, especially the big black/brown house spiders. I think its partially because they are very fast and I worry that they will run onto and up my leg.

A couple years ago, I was sampling an exploration trench in Ghana. At on point, I glanced down and all I saw were legs coming toward me (it was on my chest). I nearly jumped out of my skin even though it really wasn't that big.

Ultimately I chalk it up as an irrational fear, since things like snakes and mice don't bother me that much (and snakes love those trenches - black cobras, green mambas, etc.).

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It is largely irratonal indeed. But I can't help it. It's in most cases not to such an extent that it interferes with my life.

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That's pretty cool, actually. I have never seen a mantid fall to a 'lesser' creature, and I have kept several dozen at various times in my life. I fed them every kind of spider I could catch (even two brown recluses and a black widow), wasps, bees, salamanders, you name it. Everything that moved went right down its throat. The only thing my mantids would not consume were walking sticks, and I think that's because they were too camouflaged for the mantids. I would definitely say that was one frighteningly smart daddy longlegs. I have seen longlegs escape from the webs of other spiders before, so who knows? Maybe they're the Einsteins of the arachnid world.

I believe that the only natural predator of the praying mantis is the bat. I do know that the echolocator from a bat is pretty much the only thing a mantid is capable of hearing, which says to me it hasn't evolved to fear much of anything else.

I'm okay with spiders as long as a) they aren't on me, and b) I can see them, otherwise....

I have no idea why, I know I was fine with them as a child, and there are only 2 poisonous spiders in NZ (one of which is an Ozzie import) so it's not like I don't know that they are harmless, but somehow the fear over-rides my logic circuits and.... well yeah.

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I am afraid pf spiders and the sight of them causes me to run in the other direction.

I would guess it is more learned behavior (upbringing) than inborn. I probably wouldn't let a spider sleep in bed with me, but short of that I'm very tolerant of them. I actually like them in the house for their bug eating ways, as long as they don't put their webs across hallways, etc.

My wife, on the other hand, is very afraid of them, and will actually stay out of rooms if there is a spider in them. My job in life is to kill any spider she finds.

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In some cultures little crawly creatures of all kinds are a vital part of the diet of very young children.

My SO has no problems whatsoever with spiders. She takes them in her hands and puts them outside, in those good days where she doesn't feel the need to give it to me first. "Do you want to have it?" "What, the spider or the heart attack?"

I never really laugh at jokes of elephants being afraid of mice .

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I never had a real fear of spiders. I played with daddy long legs when I was a kid. I've held pet tarantulas, not a big deal, and my position is "live and let live" unless they are making webs in the house. I do avoid black widows, however.

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I am totally cool with those daddy long leg spiders, they don't scuttle about, they just keep to themselves out of the way in the corners of the ceiling. & they eat other spiders!(seem to keep other 'bugs' down too)
Otherwise, up to about an inch leg span I'm fine. Up to 2 1/2 inches I'll try to capture them for release outside/transplant to mates room or workmates desk drawer. Anything larger around here is just too damn fast/agile for capture so has to be terminated.

Edit:Oh, I was staying in a mates caravan near Melbourne,Oz.
With broken windows & torn bug netting.
"What's that Paul?"
I say pointing to the large, unusual looking spider on the cabinet less than two foot from my sleeping bag.
"mwmm?
OHHH! KILL IT! KILL IT!" etc comes the reply, unreasuringly.
So I have a go at it with my boot, miss, knock it onto the floor.
Certainly one of those occasions when time slows down, but still remains rather hectic
Did I get it? I did mash a large spider down there after a bit of flailing around, but that could have been another spider altogether though!

You, too, can consume things that would poison you if you had them injected into your bloodstream. It's a different process.

I'm not fond of spiders, especially given I've probably been bitten by a few in my day and had the bites get infected, but if they're not in the house, I probably won't get fussed. Besides, Intrepid Hunter D will probably find them if they're somewhere near where he's allowed to go--ie, not in the kitchen or above either of the altars.

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A few things to offer here.

1. I was a little confused by the Wiki article about the daddy long legs. Around here we have things called daddy long legs, but they are not spiders, they are closer to mites. Long legs, tiny head, bubous thorax, no webs. We have a lot of the real spider version around here too, only they are referred to as Cellar Spiders; well something similar in shape to them. They live in huge groups or alone. I got bit by something one day and one of those was under my desk. I don't know of that's what got me, but the area was red and puffy for three days, and very sesitive to touch for another week or so. It got me on the left side, about kidney high, right above the crest of my hip. And it hurt.

2. That nasty looking red and gold spider from the other article has the range wrong. Either that or there is another species that looks almost exactly lik them around here. Their fangs go latterally across the front and each is about as long as the body is wide. Freaky ugly things too. That's the one spider, other than a black widow, that the GF won't pick up to carry outside. They definately live in norther Utah.

3. In the fall, if you happen to see a mantis laying on it's side. Don't touch it to see if it's dead or dying. They hate that when they are about to lay eggs. And it hurts. Where she placed the eggs they would never have survived but they were easily transportable. She actually laid them on a corn stalk leaf that was stuck to a trash compator. I took the eggs home in the hopes that I could hatch them. The first thing the GF sai when I told her was, "They won't follow you around like baby geese you know". I knew, but it still would have been cool. They didn't hatch.

4. Since it's not been mentioned that I've seen, Ladybugs are nasty, evil, feral little creatures that should not be allowed anywhere near anything you would rather not have bathed in searing pain. Seriously. They hurt worse than an ant bite. No one seems to think they bite, but I have spoken to about a dozen people who all agree. Evil, horrid litte fang'd monsters.

As for the OP, in my case a fear of spiders was learned. I ran into a huge web one day when I was about 5. It freaked me out so badly that when I was about 12-15, I wouldn't sleep under the covers incase there were spiders. I'm a lot better now, and I can handle some of them (like in hand). Mainly jumpers. We have a few in th house that we've brought in from where we work. The plan is to let them pick off all the things we call Box Elder Bugs (which seems to be the real name... go fig) that have moved in for the winter.

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I regularly have cellar spiders in my home, once I had one of them walk across my bed about 20cm from my head as I as about to go to sleep.
I just waited until it was all the way across, then turned off the light and went to sleep.

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the spiderman never fear the spiders.