posted on 2023-06-07, 18:56authored byGraham C L Davey, Angus S McDonald, Uma Hirisave, G G Prabhu, Saburo Iwawaki, Ching Im Jim, Harald Merckelbach, Peter J de Jong, Patrick W L Leung, Bradley C Reimann
The present study represents a cross-cultural study of animal fears in which subjects from seven Western and Asian countries were asked to rate their fear of a range of familiar animals. Factor analyses of these ratings in all samples revealed a coherent three factor solution in which animals fell into a fear-irrelevant, fear-relevant (fierce) or disgust-relevant category. The core group of animals making up the disgust-relevant category were similar across cultures. Some views on how a universal disgust-relevant category of feared animals may have developed are discussed.