... the fact that the appearance of the different animals is the strongest factor relating to the fear of them. INTRODUCTION Our study regarding the fear of small animals is a replica of the original study conducted by Bennett-Levy and Marteau; who showed that a correlation existed between people's fear of some small animals and the animal's physical form. Their findings indicate that the more they differ from the human figure, the more fear they are likely to evoke. This leads to the idea that there may be a cognitive element involved; this could be learnt, or as Seligman proposed, humans may be biologically predisposed to fear certain animals. Throughout our study we hope to find whether this fear of certain animals is a result of genetics or learning (such as classical conditioning). LITERATURE REVIEW Fear Fear comes from the old English word "Faer", meaning sudden danger; where the danger is concrete, real and ...

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