Dictionary

snake fear en · NOUN

Etymology

From snake + fear.

Meanings

1. (uncountable) A fear of snakes.
   • Intense snake fear is prevalent in both humans and other primates. Humans and monkeys learn snake fear more easily than fear of most other stimuli through direct or vicarious conditioning (Ohman and Mineka, 2003). 2010, Tigerpaper, volumes 37-38:
   • All groups would demonstrate reductions in snake fear during treatment. 1966, Abstracts of Dissertations and Theses, page 51:
   • His snakefear if anything was more unhealthy than healthy, carrying with it an almost uncontrollable tendency to freeze into a panic-stricken target. 1998, James Jones, The Thin Red Line, page 52:
   • The present writer is inclined to think that cat-fear is analogous to snake-fear. 1908, The Scrap Book, volume 5, page 556:
   • Presumably, when preparedness for snake fear was being naturally selected, delaying one's fearresponse while one drew a distinction between poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes was not the most adaptive way to respond to the situation of suddenly coming across a snake. 2012, Allan V. Horwitz, PhD, Jerome C. Wakefield, DSW, PhD, All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry's Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders:
   • There was no snake fear in infant primates (Lorenz 1971) or in human infants up to 2 years old; in humans caution appeared by age 3% and definite fear by age 4 (Jones & Jones 1928), while fear increased from age 4 to 6 (Morris & Morris 1965). 1987, Isaac Marks, Fears, Phobias and Rituals: Panic, Anxiety, and Their Disorders:
   • […] it is meaningful to consider differences between high and low snake fear groups in general, rather than considering each separate measure of fear individually. 1970, Jean Tronick Barnett, Development of Children's Fear: The Relationship Between Three Systems of Fear Measurement, page 34:
   • A well-known research example is the use of Fear Thermometer ratings during behavioral approach tasks in the early snake-fear desensitization experiments. 2012, Alan S. Bellack, Michel Hersen, Handbook of Clinical Behavior Therapy with Adults, page 29:

Forms

Synonyms

ophidiophobia · snake-fright · ophiophobia