Psychology - Bennett-Levy and Marteau's - Aims and Context

Aims and Context

• Evolutionary psychology suggests certain fears are adaptive behaviours that help our distant ancestors to survive.
• Sellingman (1971) proposed the concept of biological procedures - an inherited predisposition to fear certain classes of animals, such as snakes.
• Three observations to support this belief:
• The distribution of animals phobias is non-random, i.e. Certain animals such as spiders, are often the object of fears, whereas others, such as files, are not.
• Fears of those animals is not matched by traumatic experience, i.e. People may fear spiders dispite there having been no actual contact to have triggered the fear.
• Fears often appear very early in life, reaching a peak of…