A cross-cultural study of animal fears.
The present study represents a cross-cultural study of animal fears in which subjects from seven Western and Asian countries were asked to rate their fear of a range of familiar animals. Factor analyses of these ratings in all samples revealed a coherent three factor solution in which animals fell into a fear-irrelevant, fear-relevant (fierce) or disgust-relevant category. The core group of animals making up the disgust-relevant category were similar across cultures. Some views on how a universal disgust-relevant category of feared animals may have developed are discussed.
Psychology Group, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. grahamda@cogs.susx.ac.uk
G C
GC
Davey
A S
AS
McDonald
U
U
Hirisave
G G
GG
Prabhu
S
S
Iwawaki
C I
CI
Jim
H
H
Merckelbach
P J
PJ
de Jong
P W
PW
Leung
B C
BC
Reimann
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000828:Animal Population Groups; D000818:Animals; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005060:Europe; D005202:Asia, Eastern; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D014481:United States