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By Cari Nierenberg
A spider doesn't look so itsy-bitsy to people who are petrified of them. In fact, a new study suggests that the more the eight-legged arachnid freaks someone out, the bigger that person perceives the spider to be.
People who were the most fearful of spiders tended to overestimate their actual size, Ohio State University researchers have found.
In the study, published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, scientists recruited 57 spider-phobic individuals. In three separate sessions over a two-month period, participants were asked to estimate the size of five different live tarantulas. It was actually part of the treatment they were receiving to get over their fear.
For each close encounter of the spider kind, arachnophobes were told to stand next to a glass tank and guide a spider around inside it with a probe. Participants also completed questionnaires in which they rated their fears, anxieties, and panic-related symptoms.
To estimate size, the spider-phobes would draw a line on a card to represent the length of the tarantula they had just seen.
"We found that some of our most fearful participants drew lines that were nearly three times as long as the actual spider," says Dr. Michael Vasey, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, and the study's lead author.
Phobias reflect distorted thinking and perception, which leads to fear responses that are excessive given the reality of the feared object, Vasey explains.
In other words, fear makes the spider seem bigger, which increases a person's fear of it, which makes it look even bigger, which leads a person to remember it as larger than it is, so the fear persists.
So, Vasey says, a person who is spider phobic may not only see spiders as larger than they are. That individual may also believe spiders are much more likely to bite or be dangerous, or that encountering one would be terrifying.
These mistaken beliefs are often perpetuated because the person avoids all contact with the feared object and is sheltered from learning the truth: Many spiders are completely harmless.
There's some evidence a tendency to overestimate is common to other phobias: People who are afraid of snakes as well as those who fear needles may also misjudge their length. And folks who are fearful of heights might say a balcony is higher off the ground than it is.
But the good news is that many participants who were terrified of tarantulas conquered their fear in a remarkably short time. By working with a mental health professional trained in exposure therapy, "the vast majority of spider phobics in our study overcame their fear in less than two hours," says Vasey.
Related:
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- Spider venom better than Viagra?
- Spiderphobes spot the bugs first, study shows
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Leave a Comment:
We have a lot of those Huntsman spiders around here, not only are they big but also very very fast. One time when I was little I took a jacket out of the closet and put it on, one of them was inside the sleeve. It came running out the front of the jacket and ran all over my arms, head, chest and finally ran down a leg and disappeared into the closet. Been kind of jumpy around spiders ever since.
I think I would have fainted. Hate spiders!!
I don't mind spiders that much, but I think I would've freaked out if a huntsman spider was using me for a jungle gym. Those things are monstrous, they can be bigger than tarantulas.
I can understand the feeling. I had a lizard run up my pant leg one day at school on the playground. Much hilarity ensued. (Along with lots of explaining and apologies concerning my bolting directly to the rest room, [Coming through! :)])
I'm a bit leery of the speedy little buggers yet.
Good God those huntsmens terrify me! They are so big and fast. I recall growing up in Florida and one trapped my in the bathroom when I was about 5 or 6. Damn thing would not move away from the door! I doubt I slept that night. Of course my dad had to reassure me that I was just a big pansy.
Years later I spent many months in Costa Rica. When I arrived they told me to always shake out my sheets and shoes because scorpions would hide there but it was the huntsmen under the toilet seat that had me worried. During the rainy season there would be 1 or 2 hanging out in my bathroom so I always scare them away before doing my business.
Thanks, now i know there is one country i am never going to visit
Okay, Googled Hunstman spiders. Not doing that again. We have Banded Argiope spiders out here. I can look at them and their webs, but only from about 10 ft away. Taratulas like to surprise us too. And I remember a little green spider that I suddenly found on my chest after running into it's web. I was about 5.
Since then, spiders and I have an agreement. If you are in my home, you die. If you are outside you live, unless you are freaking me out, then you die. Except for those Banded Argiope spiders. They could kick my arse and hand it back to me.
As an arachnophobe I was looking forward to reading this article. Unfortunately I couldn't because they plastered a picture of a spider on this page. Hope it was a good story!
Oh, come on. You can't even look at a picture of a spider? I'm an acrophobe (aka fear of heights), but looking at pictures of elevator shafts or over a cliff doesn't make me crap my pants. I think you're maybe also a little bit of a drama queen perhaps.
Just hold a piece of paper up to the screen to hide the picture.
Pictures are also just as hard for me too see as someone with arachnophobia. I had to scroll past the picture pretty quickly. Even that flash of the image is enough to make me tense. I had a teacher back in high school post pictures in the room and I couldn't go in. One dropped on my desk and I ran. Even as an 'adult' if one shows up on the wall or closer to me, I'll leave the room. If it's over the door- god help me. I will yell until someone comes to take care of it depending on the size.
Yes... Images can set off the fear for me too. Fake ones, not as much, but real looking and I'm done.
I have to agree that as an arachnophobic, my body was literally tensing up as I was waiting for the story to load - I knew they'd have to stick a huge picture right on top. I then had to quickly scroll so the picture was no longer visible on my screen. I don't have much fear of any creatures - not snakes, mice, rats, etc,... but spiders.... ugh they make my skin crawl.
I knew there would be a picture so I held my hand up to block it as it loaded. I could read the article that way. Spiders are evil but I know they have a purpose so I really try not to kill them. I have announced to nature that they are safe outside but if they come in the house, all bets are off. The garage is questionable territory and it is taken on a case by case basis.
I to was drawn to this article seeking help for my fear. I'm glad I had the mouse on the back button. I then had to reopen the page covering the picture with another folder so I wouldn't have to look at the picture. Whoever put that picture on here is and ass! After reading the story I realize it was a waste of time, I would never do exposure therapy. I will just stick to yelling and screaming until someone kills the damn thing.
Yea even pictures kinda freak me out too. But not like the real deal, along with scorpions and wasps or pretty much any exoskeletal creature that can deliver a nasty sting, bite or pinch. But spiders and scorpions still tie for 1st place.
With the lone exception of the brown recluse (which can give you some of the nastiest and hardest-to-treat wounds there are), spiders really don't bother me all that much. I could stick my hand all the way up to the elbow in a nest of them and it wouldn't faze me. Its wasps that increase my pucker factor to the diamond level though.
Small spiders don't bother me. Large spider do. The size where they go from too small to too big is pretty arbitrary too.
I puckered at the thought of sticking my arm in a nest of spiders.
G - Spiders in my home size out at dime-size and go all the way up to saucer. I find the size is directly proportionate to how much they had freaked me out.
I can handle seeing them for the most part as long as it is not a surprise. I can't actually smash them - my body literally refuses to respond if I get too close - but I can at least look at them. Size doesn't seem to make a difference. A surprise spider is a "me, shrieking and leaping/teleporting away" moment.
@ Lola - Spiders at the size of a dime are right there where I tend to go out of my way to kill them.
One other item that tends to not help my situation out. 3 out of 4 times when I kill a spider I have nightmares of me walking into bushes only to find myself surrounded by dense (Like cotton candy) spider webs. Talk about pucker factor.... I think I would rather have my hair set on fire and put out with a sledgehammer than have a really big spider land on me.
Snakes don't scare me at all. I am mortally afraid of spiders. A black widow spider bit our next door neighbor in the head (he was working in his attic) when I was a little girl. The neighbor died. Hence the mortal fear. What I really can't stand about spiders is that they jump. You never know where they are going to be next. I am 61 years old and I don't believe I will ever get over this fear.
Radioactive spiders are the worst
I'm going to get a tattoo of a spider on my junk and go pick up chicks at an arachnophobe support group.
Although... I have a feeling that plan is fundamentally flawed...
men
Chris....do you thrive on being an idiot?
The only good spider is a dead spider. Yes, I am scared of them. They are quiet and sneaky and ON YOU before you know it. Bad spider. Bad bad bad.
Probably better that they're quiet. It'd probably be a little more unnerving if they went around hissing or growling, you know? Although, if they meowed like kittens, I bet fewer people would be afraid of them...
If spiders sounded like kittens, I'd have to advise kittens to watch their butts!
Lol Chris! I think less people would own kittens.
I am a total arachnophobe. I believe the article saying they appear bigger than they actually are to us arachnophobes. I sometimes joke about how big the spider I saw was saying "It was so big you could hear it running across the ground." or "It was so big it hissed at me."
I hate all spiders! The only good one is a dead one to me. I always said someone wanted to get secrets from me, just put in a room full of spiders and I would tell everything. The state I live in seems to have nothing but Brown Recluse and Black Widows all over the place!
I don't know why they keep spending money on studies like this. Having lived with my (arachnophobic) wife for more than a quarter century, I would gladly have provided this information at no charge. Fear creates a type of "psychological tunnel vision" in the phobic person whose intense focus on the feared entity excludes everything else from the field of view and therefore inhibits the possibility of using nearby objects for size comparison.
Then why wouldn't their distaste for spiders result in a misperception of size in the other direction? I think you know you've skipped over some steps in the process which are harder to quantify or describe in any kind of rational terms. Not that I feel capable of describing them, but fear and excitement in phobias are also associated with desire...
She desires to be a spider?
I have no fear of spiders and will pick them up to take them outside in order to spare their lives. Black Widows, of course, are not picked up by hand but are trapped in a jar to be released in the wild. My daughter has an arachnoleptic fit when she sees a spider web, and if she spies an actual, living spider, she screams and jumps around like a cheerleader on crack. When I tried to teach her that spiders are good -- they kill and eat bad bugs, she stared blankly at me and smashed the poor little spider with her shoe. I don't think sessions with a psychologist would help her overcome that intense fear!
Get a bunch of those big harmless house spiders and dump a jar of them into her bed every night. That should desensitize her pretty quick.
Chris: I don't know that she'd be desensitized, but her screams would awaken everyone on the block; the police would break down our door; I'd be arrested for child abuse, and if CPS released her to me she'd insist on sleeping with me until she leaves for college. Not gonna happen!
Chris - or it will kill her by heart-attack. Thoughtless and uncaring.
Jan, A phobia to this extent- which sounds similar to mine, can't be solved with just telling her what good spiders do. I know that they aren't evil vile things. That doesn't stop me from nearly hyperventilating when one drops on my desk. They horrify me, even ones I know cannot hurt me. Sounds the same for your daughter. Exposure therapy is only one way to treat it. If anyone tried to push me into exposure therapy, I don't think it'd work.
Used to be scared completely to death by spiders. Not anymore. They are too beneficial in the scheme of things and most are harmless. I even have a hard time killing black widows. A few summers ago I kept a huge female widow in a fish tank. Widows are the most beautiful spiders on earth. It was really amazing to watch her spin her web. Anyway, they are just as afraid of you and only bite if you are a threat. Brown recluse are a different story. Those buggers can do some nasty damage when they bite. All in all, spiders are wonderful creatures and I don't understand everyone's fear of them. Get educated about spiders and you will find out they are really not so bad after all. Sorry, didn't mean to make all you arachnophobes, cringe.
I read you. And I know all that. But it doesn't stop my skin from crawling when I see one. However, I can spout all the stats on sharks and shark attacks and such. Most people don't like them. I have a a fascination for them.
Get a grip on reality! We all know that they serve a purpose but that doesn't make it something to just get over. Glad you were able to overcome your fears but do not sit up on your high horse and tell people to "get educated" so they'll get over it. And why on earth would you decide to confine one of these great creatures if she had such a lovely purpose?
One of these statements is a lie; which one?
Seriously, when I was a kid, if I so much as saw a spider, I would go into hysterics. Just ask my mom. Can't help it if I outgrew that fear. Now that I know the facts about spiders they are really not so scary after all. And, no, neither of those statements is a lie. Things do change between childhood and adulthood, even some fears. If you talk about fear of heights, that scares the h#ll out me.
I used to be this way about spiders. It was only until I learned more about them, how harmless many are and what good they do, that my fears started to ebb. I'm still not a big fan, but the sight of them no longer makes my tummy turn over. Spiders are good and helpful! Just... not in the house.
Probably a very common attitude. Spiders are a little eerie; they spin a web and sit and wait for their prey, etc. So people can project a lot of malevolence onto them in a way that's less likely with ants or other common bugs. Plus the extra legs.
I dunno... spiders don't bother me at all. They're (mostly) tiny and harmless and defenseless, and if they bother you that much, you can just kill them. You know what bugs bother me more? Moths. I dislike bugs touching me and those things are just so damned unpredictable, you can't tell where they're going next. You can't even sit outside in the summer near a porch light without being dive-bombed by a swarm of the stupid bumbling things. And if they hit you hard enough, they leave a little smear of that grimy powder they're coated with. Yuck.
The fact that they're ugly as sin probably has something to with it too. ;p Tiny, venemous, web-spinning puppies probably wouldn't have the same effect. Actually, that sounds creepy too.
And moths get stuck in lamps and make a stink of burned wings.. but I'll tell ya, scorpions can out-creepy any of them ! Ugh !!
I'm arachnophobic, mainly what gets me is the surprise...if I know where they are, and if they are under glass, I'm ok. I even own a few specimens incased in lucite. Love those. If one drops on me, or runs by when I'm..say...in the bathroom (volnerable) it sucks. Also, they look a lot like a detatched living human sternum with 8 ribs for legs. Creepy.
Agreed. It's the surprise factor that gets me, too. Although I admit my heart does pick up the pace and I get a bit tense seeing one in a jar.
I know this isn't exactly the biggest issue on Earth at this moment, but a lot of you just do not understand phobias.....probably because you don't have one, which is good. Phobias don't succumb to logic, and they are not a sign of overall weakness or timidity. I know that spiders are essentially harmless. I know that they are good for the environment and help control insects. I agree that they are fascinating and marvels of nature. For instance, spider silk is, pound for pound, one of the stongest materials on earth. Spiders just cause me an immediate, intense panic reaction...can't help it. I never had a traumatic experience involving spiders (other than the fact that every experience I have with spiders is traumatic). I'm not afraid of much other stuff....in fact I'm way less afraid of lots of things that can hurt you more than a spider. There isn;t any explanation, but I really don't think its a character flaw..........it just is what it is. And for those of you saying "Just dump a bunch of spiders on him/her....that'll "desensitize" them......just so you know, I am almost positive that I would have a fatal heart attack if someone did that to me. And if I lived through it, I would plunge the nearest sharp object, in a split second reaction, into the heart of whoever did it....so careful with the armchair therapy suggestions.
Make all the threats you want; desensitization therapy has proved effective time and time again.
There is a difference between gentle, slow desensitization therapy and dumping a jar of live spiders in someone's bed.
Anyone who did that would be no friend or family of mine. Talk about cruel and heartless.
I wasn't afraid of spiders until we moved to the country when I was a kid. Nothing creates a fear of spiders more than running for the bus down your driveway and getting clotheslined by a spider's web and then wondering just how big that sucker that created the particular zipline was!
I'm still not a fan, even though they do serve a purpose, they can serve their purpose outside of my house. I have a standing agreement with spiders in our area that they can do what they want outside and are not allowed in my house. If they're found indoors, they get yelled at and get tossed out the door by someone who is actually able to go within spittin' distance of them...namely my very brave 14 year old daughter. And why would I want to kill them with a shoe that I'll need to wear afterwards??!! I shudder at the thought.
Too many moving parts man!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I love tarantulas, and they come in a variety of colors including orange, purple, and bright blue. Phobias are unfortunately real, but most people can overcome with some counseling. I've converted several true arachnophobes to the level of "oh, wow, that's a cool photo!" There really isn't any need to go completely nuts at a photo, get a little help from some friends (supportive help, not throw-spiders-on-them help) and find other things you should truly be concerned about!
I was serving in the Marine Corps in Bosnia--there are spiders out there the size of dinner plates! I was more scared of those than the air strikes!
Elmo: [shows Philo his Black Widow tattoo's] You see that?
Philo Beddoe: An arm? (Eastwood)
Elmo: No, that!
Philo Beddoe: A tattoo?
Elmo: He don't know what this means.
Frank: [shows Orville his Black Widow tattoo's] Do you see that?
Orville Boggs: [sneezes on Franks arm] Ah-choo! Oh, sorry.
Philo Beddoe: Two tattoos?.
Elmo: Them's Black Widows.
Frank: Did you know that more people die from black widows than rattlers every year!!?
Orville Boggs: Is that right?
Frank: Yeah, that's right.
Orville Boggs: Well, listen, I sure do appreciate knowing that,.. Because most of the people I know just -splat- step on 'em and squish 'em.
Movie scene with\Clint Eastwood in "Every Which Way But Loose"
The only spiders you really need to worry about are the ones that when you try to step on them they grab your leg and stop you.
I am not scared of em but on my mountain bike when i run face first into one sitting in a web they look really big. lol
Moved to Oklahoma from Arizona 3 years ago....Never thought I would see a scorpion here OR a tarantula. But they are here in great #s. I have more problems with scorpions, but neither them or any thing else really has a hold on me like the FLY. Most disgusting creature God (if atheist what ever made them) put on this earth! I know............They serve a purpose. But that's where the spiders come in with his/her web. Flyswatters works well also..............
All spiders look big to me. When I see one the own the house until my husband or son "evicts" them. HA HA HA
Spiders do not scare me at all - mice on the other hand terrify me! My six year old son at the time had to take a mouse from our cat while I was on top of my bed screaming!
And you tell people that? What age are you?
I LOVE people who HATE spiders! HA! HA! HA! heh!heh! heh! HOHOHO! TeeHeeHee! Little Mice Too! eeeeeeeeK!