Scientists launched reptiles into the nursery to assess the reaction of the kids. The result killed: the crumbs perceived the reptiles as toys, and some tried to eat them
I find this interesting, it really counters the unfounded but popular notion that fear of certain animals is evolutionary and intrinsic within our DNA.
Reminds me of that one study with monkeys, where they found that monkeys who had never seen a snake had no fear of them, BUT if they saw a snake along with another monkey expressing fear of it (even just a video clip of a snake followed by a video clip of a monkey looking scared!) they’d start being afraid of snakes from then on
And this was true for snakes, but not for everything. (for example, you could not give a monkey a fear of flowers by showing a video clip of a flower followed by a video clip of a monkey looking scared.)
So it seemed from that study that there was some inherent genetic fear of snakes in the monkeys? but it had to be triggered by seeing other monkeys afraid of snakes. Otherwise it wouldn’t activate
And (if i remember correctly?) the first impression was the most important? like, if a monkey’s first experience with a snake was seeing other monkeys NOT afraid of it, you could not easily give that monkey a fear of snakes afterwards
Not sure if any of this translates to human babies. But it’s an interesting exploration of the interplay between nature and nurture.
ALT