PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
Study 8 - Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
Fear of Animals: What is prepared? (pg 86-91)
Field of psychology: Physiological Psychology
1. CONTEXT AND AIMS
Context

Think back to PY1. What explanation did we have
for how phobias are formed?

What do you think are the most common animal
phobias?
What is the Evolutionary Approach?
Darwin’s theory of natural selection is based on three
main assumptions.
1. Only a small proportion of each generation survives
to reproduce.
2. Offspring are not identical to their parents, and so
each generation has a degree of variation, and that
at least some of this variation is heritable (can be
passed on).
3. Some characteristics give the animal an advantage
over others in the “survive and reproduce” stakes.
The characteristics which give the animal a greater
chance of survival and reproduction are adaptive. This
means that the animal is better adapted to the
environment, and is therefore more likely to survive,
reproduce and pass these adaptive genes on to their
offspring. This is natural selection.
For example, if the animal has the characteristic “scared
of snakes” that animal will avoid snakes, and be more
likely to survive, reproduce, and pass the “scared of
snakes” characteristic on to their offspring. Animals with
the characteristic “don’t be scared of snakes” are less
likely to survive and reproduce and pass on this
characteristic.
If a characteristic has survived and been passed down
through the generations, it must have been adaptive and
have given the animal a survival advantage.
Both Bennett-Levy and Marteau had treated patients with specific animal phobias, and had
noted that many of their patients had phobias of the same sorts of animals. It may be that
these phobias came about through classical conditioning; that an individual has a negative
experience with a particular animal, and so therefore learns to associate fear with that animal,
leading to the development of a phobia.
Some evidence to support this point of view is provided by Seligman (1971). He showed
participants various pictures of animals and plants, while simultaneously giving an electric
shock. He was able to induce a phobic response to the pictures in this way, thus supporting
the idea of classical conditioning. However, he found that only two to four shocks were
necessary to induce a fear of snakes and spiders, but many more shocks were needed to
create a fear of flowers.
This suggests
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Seligman proposed the concept of biological preparedness, which is an inherited predisposition to fear
certain classes of animals such as snakes. He states that we have a prepared template that predisposes
us to certain fears.

Summarise the four pieces of evidence that Bennett-Levy and Marteau use for biological preparedness.
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
2. _______________________________________________________________________________
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3. _______________________________________________________________________________
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4. _______________________________________________________________________________
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But how does this biological preparedness actually produce a fear? Is it possible that we have one
prepared template for “fear of snakes” and another for “fear of spiders” and so on, or could there be a more
general mechanism that can explain all phobias? Below we will look at two possible factors: movement
and appearance.
MOVEMENT

What did Mineka et al (1980) find, and what does this suggest about biological
preparedness?
The idea that it is movement which causes fear is supported by Schneirla
(1965). He noted that certain characteristics of movement predictably produce a
fear response. These stimuli are generally abrupt, irregular in timing and of high
magnitude. He called this the aversive stimulus configuration. For instance, a
large animal (high magnitude) which moved unpredictably (irregular) and
towards the observer (abrupt) should cause the greatest fear. He also stated
that various other characteristics such as feel, sound of appearance could
combine together to create fear.
APPEARANCE
Hinde (1974) suggested that other characteristics may invoke a fear response,
namely novelty and strangeness. Hinde further suggested that a large discrepancy
between a stimulus (such as a snake) and the organism’s model of the world (i.e. a
human shape) is the basis for this response (this might also suggest why the scariest
monsters in films are the ones that look very different from the human form). This is
known as the discrepancy principle.
Bennett-Levy and Marteau support this concept, as in the treatment of their own
patients, they noted that the descriptions of what patients feared focused on what the
animals looked like and felt like. In Britain, these feared animals are mostly small and
harmless and although the patient may know this, they still remain terrified by the
sight, feel and thought of it, possibly due to the discrepancy principle.
Aims
Seligman’s concept of biological preparedness offered no suggestion about the mechanism by which
preparedness would operate. Bennett-Levy and Marteau aimed to investigate the underlying mechanism:
whether human beings are biologically prepared to fear certain stimulus
configurations in small harmless animals. The characteristics investigated in
the feared animals would be broadly broken down into two categories:
movement, looking at whether the feared animals move rapidly or abruptly:
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
and appearance, namely if the feared animal deviates from the human form (is it ugly or slimy?).
They predicted that these characteristics of these small harmless animals should meaningfully relate to the
distribution and avoidance of these animals. In other words, if an animal is seen as being very different
from the human form, and is also perceived to move rapidly and abruptly, it should be feared by more
people, and also be avoided by more people.
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
2. PROCEDURES (pg 87)
Who were the participants?
Research method used?
Design
Variables measured
The sample consisted of 113 participants attending a British health
centre (59 females and 54 males). The participants were gained
through __________________________________ sampling.
The participants were randomly assigned into two groups.
 Group 1 had 34 females, 30 males (mean age: 35.5 years)
 Group 2 had 25 females and 24 males (mean age: 35.5 years)
Questionnaire and informal interview
Correlational (there is no IV and no DV. The results from each set of
questionnaires would be compared with each other to see if a
relationship could be found)
Characteristics of animals (ugly, slimy, speedy, moves suddenly) and
reactions to animals (fear, avoidance).
 The participants were given one of two questionnaires. Group 1 were given questionnaire 1 and group
2 were given questionnaire 2.
 Both questionnaires concerned 29 small harmless animals. The reason for using harmless animals
was because, it was argued that the same perceptual characteristics (how it looks, feels etc) that
create fear in harmful animals should create fear in harmless animals, even though they are of no
biological significance to the survival of humans.
o Remember that Bennett-Levy and Marteau were interested in the underlying mechanism
that created fear. If they used harmful animals the results may have been influenced by a
person’s perception of the danger they would face from a particular animal. This would
have acted as a confounding variable, and would have affected the validity of the results.
 Some of the animals might still have been perceived to be dangerous (such as a grass snake, or
jellyfish). In these cases, a note was made that the animal was harmless, and the participants were
asked to rate it as a harmless animal.
Animal
Fear
Nearness
Ant
 Questionnaire 1 was designed to measure self reported fear and
avoidance of the animals and insects. Participants rated the
animals on two scales:
o Fear scale: participants were asked to rate their fear of the
animal on a three point scale (1=not afraid, 2=quite afraid,
3=very afraid)
o Nearness scale: participants rated their avoidance by
completing a five point scale of nearness (1=enjoy picking it
up, 2=would pick it up but unpleasant, 3=touch it or go
within 15cm, 4=stand 30-180cm away, 5=move further than
180cm away)
Beetle
Grass snake
Jellyfish
Hamster
Spaniel
Spider
Frog
Ladybird
Rat
Worm

Have a go at answering this sample section of the questionnaire (a selection of animals from the
questionnaire). While you are doing so, note down any potential issues you encounter (think back to the
lesson on Questionnaires).
Animal
Ugly
Slimy
Speedy
Move
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
 Questionnaire 2 was designed to measure self
reported ratings of the same 29 animals and
insects as in questionnaire 1, but specifically
along four perceptual dimensions.
o The participants were asked “We would
like you to consider how UGLY, SLIMY
and SPEEDY the animals are, and how
SUDDENLY they appear to MOVE.”
o The participants rated these characteristics
on a three point scale (1=not, 2=quite,
3=very)
Ant
Beetle
Grass snake
Jellyfish
Hamster
Spaniel
Spider
Frog
Ladybird
Rat

Worm
Again, have a go at completing the questionnaire,
noting any potential issues.
 After the questionnaire, participants were given a short informal interview, to allow them to expand on
the answer s they gave. This also allowed the researchers to collect qualitative data.
 After the data had been collected, the researcher compared the results from each questionnaire in a
correlational analysis to look for any relationships between the physical characteristics of an animal,
and how much it was feared or avoided.
3. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
Findings

Use the table of results on page 88 to complete the following
Which three animals are the most feared (include mean)?
1. ________________________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________________________
Which three animals do people want to be the furthest away from (include mean)?
1. ________________________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________________________
 The mean ratings show that participants were disproportionately more fearful of the rat that of other
animals. After the questionnaire, the researchers conducted informal interviews, and found that it was
because rats were perceived as more harmful. Bennett-Levy and Marteau concluded that their attempt
to remove the effects of perceived harmfulness from the questionnaire had failed in this instance.
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
Gender differences:
 In the ratings for nearness, it was found that females were less likely to approach or pick up
10 of the animals than males. These animals were jellyfish, cockroach, ant, moth, crow,
worm, beetle, slug, mouse and spider.
 Similar differences were found in the fear ratings. However, there were no notable sex
differences in the ratings of ugliness, sliminess, speediness and sudden movement.
 Generally, men rated themselves as less fearful than women. However, when animals were
ranked in order of nearness, there was a correlation of 0.96 between men and women. In
other words, men and women feared the same animals in the same order, but men claimed
to be less afraid then women.
Correlation matrix
The researchers also compiled a correlation matrix. This is a table where all of the variables measured
are correlated with each other. This produces a correlation co-efficient (see your notes on Correlations
for more information).
A correlation matrix can be found on page 112 of the textbook. Using this information, find the correlation
coefficients to the variables below and draw a rough line to show the relationship.
Correlation
Coefficient
=
=
Fear
Correlation
Coefficient
Nearnes
s

Ugly
=
=
Nearnes
s
Correlation
Coefficient
Fear
Correlation
Coefficient
Ugly
Slimy
Slimy
 Initially, it seemed that there was no relationship between nearness and sudden movement (correlation
coefficient = 0.05). However, when ugliness was removed as a variable, suddenness of movement was
significantly correlated with nearness (correlation coefficient = 0.61).
o Similar partial correlations were found between speediness and both fear and nearness.
Bennett-Levy and Marteau summed these findings up as follows:
In sum, each of the four ratings of the perceptual characteristics is
significantly related to both fear and nearness ratings as predicted. Ugliness
and sliminess predominate in these relationships, but when their effects are
removed, speediness and suddenness of movement are both seen to exert
a significant influence. The hypothesis that the perceptual characteristics of
the animals rated by one group of subjects should be relate to the fear and
nearness ratings of a second group is clearly supported.
James Bennett-Levy, Theresa Marteau
Conclusions
General conclusions
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
 The results suggest that the perceptual characteristics of animals are important in
determining the way people think and feel about them. Animals that have the four
perceptual characteristics (ugly, slimy, speedy or sudden moving) are experienced
as less approachable and more fear provoking than other animals without these
qualities.
 Despite the effort to remove the effect of anticipated harm by instructing participants
to rate certain animals as harmless, this is obviously an important characteristic
when it comes to rating the fearfulness and other perceptual characteristics of
animals.
Implications for the theory of Biological Preparedness
The general aim of this study was to investigate the actual mechanisms underlying common animal fears.
Bennett-Levy and Marteau suggest two possible mechanisms that may be at work:
1. The Discrepancy Principle: In the context section, we looked at a theory by Hinde
(1974) that stated that we fear animals where there is a large discrepancy between
their physical characteristics and the human form. When interviewed informally
afterwards, the participants said that their judgment of ugliness was based on
sliminess, hairiness, the colour of the animal, the number of limbs and antennae, and
the relation of its eyes to its head. All of these characteristics fit with the discrepancy
principle.
2. Aversive Stimulus Configurations: Schneirla (1965) suggested that certain characteristics of
movement and other perceptual qualities when combined together cause fear. This study supports
that idea as speediness and abruptness of movement were all significantly correlated with fear
when the effects of ugliness were removed. In addition, participants reported other tactile cues, such
as the feel of a spider and auditory cues such as the hiss of a snake, which contributed to the
fearfulness of certain animals.
Bennett-Levy and Marteau concluded thus:
The results from this study indicated that humans are probably not prepared
specifically to fear animals of biological significance to the species. Rather, the
degree to which humans are prepared to approach or fear an animal depends
not only on its objective harmfulness, but also on the presence of certain fear
evoking perceptual properties, and it’s discrepancy from the human form.
4. EVALUATING THE METHODOLOGY (pg 90)
Method:
 The researchers used a questionnaire to collect their data. What are the strengths and weaknesses
of using a questionnaire in this study? They also used informal interviews after the questionnaire.
What are the strengths and weaknesses here?
 They analysed their data using correlations. What are the advantages and disadvantages for this in
this study? Could the correlations be interpreted in a different way?
 The participants who filled out questionnaire 1 were different from the participants who filled out
questionnaire 2 (independent measures). Why is this a strength? What downsides does this method
have?
Reliability:
 Can/has this study been replicated?
 Merckelbach et al (1987) replicated this research, and found similar associations between fear and
avoidance of an animal and its perceived characteristics. What does this suggest about reliability?
 Does the analysis of the results rely on subjective interpretation? Is this a strength or a weakness?
Validity:
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
 Look at the study by Merckelbach et al (1987) above. This was a study carried out on different people.
What does this suggest about validity?
 How valid were the two questionnaires?
o Are we really measuring what we intent to measure? Look specifically at the questions asked.
o The researchers measured “nearness” by asking the participants how close they would get to a
particular animal. Would the results be different if the participant were actually tested with live
animals?
o If a participant had never encountered a particular animal before, could they realistically rate their
fear/avoidance of it, or rate its characteristics?
o Could there have been a social desirability bias with some participants?
o The researchers tried to eliminate the variable of harmfulness of the animals. They were unable to
do this for the rats. Is it possible that they might not have done so for other animals? How could this
confounding variable have affected the results?
o Are there any other confounding variables?
o How valid is the use of a three point scale for fear? Would this scale mean the same thing to all
people?
Sampling:
 The researchers used opportunity sampling. What is an advantage/disadvantage of this in this
study?
 All the participants were visitors to a health centre. What issues might this raise?
 All the participants were British. How might this affect the extent to which these findings can be
generalised to other countries? (Think specifically about the types of wild animals found in Britain
compared with other countries.)
 The researchers ensured that there was a roughly equal split of men and women in the two groups.
Why was this an advantage? (Think back to the gender differences in the findings.)
Ethical issues:
 Are there any ethical issues you can see in this research?
5. CRITICALLY ASSESS WITH REFERENCE TO ALTERNATIVE EVIDENCE
As we learned at the beginning of this study, the concept of biological preparedness is that an animal
(including humans) will have an innate readiness to learn to associate certain stimuli with fear or avoidance.
This would have provided an advantage to the animal’s ancestors (see box on page 1). Such stimuli are
describes as fear relevant (FR), in other words a sensible thing to fear, such as spiders, and fear irrelevant
(FI), things that biologically speaking it makes little sense to fear such as flowers.
A number of predictions arise from this theory.
1. Fear should be learned quicker for FR stimuli
2. When such FR fears are acquired, they are harder to unlearn (extinguish)
1. Rapid Learning:

Which study that we looked at in the Aims and Context section could be relevant here?
2. Extinction: Ohman (2000) noted that conditioned fear responses for FI
stimuli such as houses and flowers became extinct as soon as the
unconditioned aversive shock was no longer paired with these stimuli. A fear
response still persisted however with FR stimuli such as snakes and spiders.
This supports the idea of biological preparedness as the FR fears
are harder to extinguish.
Studies with animals
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PY2 Core Studies: 8 – Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
Further evidence comes from Cook and Mineka (1990) who conducted a series of experiments where
observer monkeys watched videos of other monkeys behaving fearfully with either a toy snake/crocodile or
a toy rabbit/flowers. The observer monkeys later displayed a fearful response to the snakes and crocodiles,
but not to the flowers or rabbits.
This suggests
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In another study, Mineka and Cook (1986) demonstrated that observation could ‘inoculate’ a monkey
against acquiring a fear. If a monkey was first exposed to other monkeys behaving non-fearfully with a
snake, then they did not acquire a fear when shown the videos.
Studies with humans
Regan and Howard (1995) conditioned human participants by showing slides
of either FR or FI stimuli, followed by a neutral stimulus; white noise. Later,
when the noise was played, the participants were more likely to demonstrate a
fear response when the white noise had been associated with a fear relevant
stimulus (e.g. a small animal) than fear irrelevant stimuli (a landscape).
Expectancy bias
Davy (1995) proposed an alternative explanation – the expectancy bias. An expectancy
bias is an expectation that FR stimuli (such as dangerous situations, past experience of
unpleasantness) will produce negative consequences in the future. There is no need to talk
about past evolutionary history to explain fears. Fears are the result of expecting that
something bad will happen.
This could explain why the participants in
Bennett-Levy and Marteau feared the rat
so much; they had an expectancy bias that a
rat could cause them harm in the future.
The expectancy bias could also explain some inconsistent data, such as some modern phobias; for
example it would be ridiculous to assume that a fear of flying or a fear of hypodermic needles could have
evolved!
In the textbook, there is further alternative evidence about the evolution of a fear of disease which
could also explain the results.
Use three colours to highlight research that supports, contradicts, or develops Bennett-Levy and
Marteau’s research.
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