Girls Wired To Fear Dangerous Animals

Foot-in-Mouth writes "New Scientist reports that girls are more "primed" to fear spiders and snakes, compared to boys. Infant boys and girls were shown pairs of images, a fearful and a happy object (such as a spider and a flower), measuring the boys' and girls' dwell times on the images. And in another similar test, normally happy objects (such as a flower) were given a fearful face and fearful objects were given a happy face. The results of these two tests suggested to the researcher that girls are not wired to fear spiders, for example, but rather girls are wired to more quickly learn to fear dangerous animals. The researcher, David Rakison at CMU, 'attributes the difference to behavioural differences between men and women among our hunter-gatherer ancestors. An aversion to spiders may help women avoid dangerous animals, but in men evolution seems to have favoured more risk-taking behaviour for successful hunting.' This reminds one of men's obsession with video games. Will game designers use this information to tweak video games for gender, either to make the games more or less frightening?"

Nature vs nurture.

[stagg]

I assume that they picked such young children to avoid the nature vs nurture debate, but this still seems a long way from objective. Aren't we really just reinforcing our own preconceptions with this kind of pseudoscience? It says that the girls "looked" more fearful. It seems foolish to base a scientific study off of some scientist's ability to objectively judge facial expressions in infants. That's not science.

Bullshit

[Locke2005]

My daughter used to pick up spiders with her bare hands when she was 3, as well as dance on shelves 11 feet off the ground and climb out of second story windows. I had to intentionally terrify her a few times to teach her fear, but now I've trained her not to touch spiders. She still has no problem handling garter snakes. Her mother, coming from a part of the world where many venomous snakes are found, is so terrified of all snakes that she cannot even bear to see them on TV. So are all her relatives, so we have had the situation where an adult male refused to hold a garter snake I caught in the yard, but a 6-year old girl didn't have any problem with it. (By the way, garter snakes actually are venomous, but their venom teeth are in the back of their mouth and there are no known incidents of them biting people.)

Gender discrimination? Say it ain't so.

[skornenicholas]

I find it rather humorous that it is considered so taboo to say that maybe, just MAYBE, men are discrimnated against as well. Don't believe me? As a male, also kinda a large guy I'm 6'3" and 220, I also happen to LOVE kids. And not in the have some candy and get in my van way, in the oh my God have candy and a pony and if you smile I might just steal a space shuttle and go to the moon to get you moon rocks, kinda way. Living in America if I so much as "Oooh, awwww" over a small child, especially if it is female, I am treated as a pervert. Not just sometimes, but 99% of the time. I found a lost crying child in Wal*Mart and I bought her a sucker and put her in a stroller going aisle to aisle to find her parents. I was tackled from behing by security with no verbal warning what so EVER. It hurt like hell and busted my nose. I am now terrified to so much as smile at a child, even my own small cousins. The thing is that every male habit is viewed as bad from the get go and we have to fight to prove it is useful. I work two jobs, my father is dying of cancer, my mothers mill was outsourced, and neither of them graduated High School. I support me, my parents, my ex wife, putting my oldest cousin through ACC, while taking guardianship of his sister while she completes school because both of her parents are now in jail. I come home, I cook, I clean, make sure everyone is okay, laundry is done, homework is done, medication is taken. If I decide to spend two hours shoving bayonets in the throats of other dudes in Call of Duty what right do you have to say I shouldn't? It is a stress reliever. Am I addicted? It depends, it doesn't interfer with my life so I would say no, but I do enjoy it very much. It is time to put aside our "beliefs" about what is male and what is female and look at it from a completely open point of view. Let us start all over with new ideas and create a new comprehensive study using double blind standards, then find out is it male/female, is it race, religion, upbringing, or does it simply vary wildly from person to person? I am thinking it is the latter, I find demographics studies to be prebiased and largely absurd.

Re:mice?

[Nadaka]

I am no fan of mice. I once woke up in the middle of the night to notice a mouse sitting on my foot and eating the skin from my toes. I spent the rest of the night sitting in the dark in the middle of my apartment with a pellet gun and a flashlight. Every time I heard it scurry I would spot light it. The first time it was in front of my computer. The second time it was in front of some glass dishes. The third time I cought it in the open, and took a shot as it jumped jumped 3 feet towards some shelves. I managed to hit it center of mass from about 10 feet.

Re:Gender discrimination? Say it ain't so.

[rainmaestro]

I realize this is a troll, and I shouldn't bother responding, but....

This is a common misinterpretation. I'm not saying I like *hanging around with kids*. I'm saying I like a lot of the same things as I did when I was a kid.

Personally, I don't particularly like being around kids (I neither have, nor want, children). but when I am around them, they tend to like me because I can still act like a kid, instead of being just another boring adult who completely ignores them.

I'm the type that goes out to a state park and spends half a day following birds around to see what kind of material they're making nests out of. It has nothing to do with children, other than it being the same curiosity about the world that I had as a child, the thing that so many people lose as they grow up.

As far as pretending, it helps. When I've been troubleshooting a SQL Server issue for three days, spending an hour daydreaming about something else helps me approach the problem from a fresh perspective.

Re:Gender discrimination? Say it ain't so.

[clone53421]

Yes, I was trolling (I'm the same AC).

In a way, I was acknowledging the problem you describe. I was poking you where I know it's uncomfortable. I've felt the same thing.

In a way, I was also trying to show how silly it sounds to freak out just because an adult gets along well with children.

(You fed the troll; I'll bet you didn't expect to get this in return. ;)

Meh... I've said what I have to say, now moving on...