ArticleBMC psychiatry2021
Fear inoculation among snake experts.
Article in BMC psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fears Related to Blood-Injection-Injury Inhibit Bystanders from Giving First Aid.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- A machine learning approach to investigate the role of fear of pain, personal experience, and vicarious learning in dental anxiety.BMC oral health · 2025Article
- Inhibitory properties of a latent inhibitor after its compound preexposure with several novel stimuli: evidence from human conditioning.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Snake phobia among the general population of Tamil Nadu, India.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Article
- Key factors behind various specific phobia subtypes.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The role of fear, disgust, and relevant experience in the assessment of stimuli associated with blood-injury-injection phobia.Heliyon · 2022Article
- Mechanisms of False Alarm in Response to Fear Stimulus: An Event-Related Potential Study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFear acquisition of certain stimuli, such as snakes, is thought to be rapid, resistant to extinction, and easily transferable onto other similar objects. It has been hypothesized that due to increased survival chances, preparedness to instantly acquire fear towards evolutionary threats has been hardwired into neural pathways of the primate brain. Here, we compare participants' fear of snakes according to experience; from those who often deal with snakes and even suffer snakebites to those unfamiliar with snakes.
methodsThe Snake Questionnaire-12 (SNAQ-12) and Specific Phobia Questionnaire (SPQ) were administered to three groups of participants with a different level of experience with snakes and snakebites: 1) snake experts, 2) firefighters, and 3) college students.
resultsThis study shows that individuals more experienced with snakes demonstrate lower fear. Moreover, participants who have suffered a snakebite (either venomous or not) score lower on fear of snakes (SNAQ-12), but not of all other potentially phobic stimuli (SPQ).
conclusionsOur results suggest that a harmless benign exposure might immunize people to highly biologically prepared fears of evolutionary threats, such as snakes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.