Arachnophobia: Why Are People Scared of Spiders?

The emotion a spider elicits is not just fear but a combination of fear, disgust, and creepiness. Psychologists reckon that we have evolved to feel disgust or revulsion to prevent us from consuming or contacting things that might be a vehicle for diseases. This would include feces, vomit, mucus, and anything that shares their principal qualities, namely a foul odor, sliminess, or stickiness.

Fear of spiders (arachnids) or insects, in general, is widespread in Western cultures. Children have ranked spiders to be their greatest fear, above getting kidnapped and “the dark”. The West’s fear and disgust of spiders can be traced back to the Middle Ages when Europeans believed that spiders were the cause of the Black Death (the actual perpetrator was later discovered to be the black rat). Water and food were deemed “corrupted” if spiders were found crawling in them.