Subconscious Bias Drives Negative Attitudes Toward Snakes

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-12-12 17:43:45 | Updated at 2024-12-23 08:37:14 1 week ago

Subconscious Bias Drives Negative Attitudes Toward Snakes
NC State University ^ | 10/21/21 | Laura Oleniacz

Posted on 12/12/2024 9:36:09 AM PST by DallasBiff

Snakes rank among Americans’ top animal phobias, and are among the most disliked animals globally. A new study from North Carolina State University finds that the dislike of snakes is subconscious and, to some extent, learned.

“Snakes are important,” said the study’s first author Audrey Vaughn, a former graduate student at NC State. “They serve as both important predators and sources of prey for other wildlife. They can also serve as important ecological indicators. This disdain that people have for them is something that impacts our ability to make sure they are well conserved. That in and of itself is a reason to better understand these attitudes and to try to figure out what can be done about them.”

(Excerpt) Read more at news.ncsu.edu ...

TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: democrats; snakes

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I know there are snake lovers, but snakes creep me out.

I dug a hole for a baby pine tree to be planted many years ago, and a copperhead showed up while digging by a stream and I decapitated it.

Flame away, we are in the doldrums of political talk until 1/3/25.

1 posted on 12/12/2024 9:36:09 AM PST by DallasBiff

To: DallasBiff

Snakes need to get the PR firm that sharks got to get portrayed more positively in movies and on TV. "Snake week" on Discovery Channel?

3 posted on 12/12/2024 9:42:28 AM PST by Opinionated Blowhard (When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.)

To: DallasBiff

I tend to leave nonvenomous snakes alone. I may relocate them but not kill them. The venomous ones are left to enjoy their lives as long as they are not on the homestead. On the homestead they tend to get eaten by the pigs.

I do not LIKE snakes but they do have their place. Just not in my footwear.

4 posted on 12/12/2024 9:43:15 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)

To: DallasBiff

So the snakes are reviled by humans on a “subconscious level” says “Science”?

Hmmm seems Biblical

Genesis 3:14-15

Then the Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all the livestock,
And more than any animal of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And dust you shall eat
All the days of your life;
15 And I will [c]make enemies
Of you and the woman,
And of your [d]offspring and her [e]Descendant;
He shall [f]bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

5 posted on 12/12/2024 9:43:30 AM PST by MNJohnnie (Don't blame me, my congressman is MTG!)

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