Essay On Herpetophobia

In general, the fear of something or a phobia refers to one having an acute or severe aversion to an experience or object (Craske, Antony, & Barlow, 2006, p.4). According to Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk (2013), phobias are considered as a basic form of elicit behavior, at which, when a stimulus is presented it leads to an involuntary response to occur. This is the rate of occurrence is known as a reflex. Reflexes are often caused by conditioning through learned associations or classical conditioning involving a stimulus and the elicit reaction of a stimulus, particularly, within one’s environment (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p.109-110).

How did Herpetophobia Develop?

Antony and McCabe (2005) found that possessing a phobia of animals is the most widespread fear across all other feared objects and circumstances. In fact, the absolute most common animal phobia is herpetophobia, which is a severe aversion or

When exposed to a lizard or reptile at certain period of time, possessing a phobia only towards that lizard is detrimental. According to evolutionary context, it’s “more adaptive to” gain a phobia towards other lizards and reptiles as well through a process called stimulus generalization (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p.140). In stimulus generalization, the conditioned response leads to some generalization whenever new conditioned stimuli resemble the original conditioned stimuli (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p.140). In other words, the greater the similarity of the stimuli, the stronger the intensity of a conditioned response (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p.140). However, generalizations of particular stimuli require strongly visible characteristics such as “varying color or brightness”, the intensity of a bite, or size (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013,