Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’ – MODEL ANSWER
- Outline the procedures of Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’
Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984) aimed to investigate if human beings are biologically prepared to fear certain stimulus configurations in animals, such as rapid/abrupt movement and discrepancies from the human form, and if these ratings are meaningfully related to the distribution of ratings of fear and avoidance of these animals. In order to do this Bennett-Levy and Marteau used 113 participants who were attending a British health centre. They were asked to complete one of two questionnaires, which were distributed in a random order. Group 1 (completed questionnaire 1) had a total of 64 participants including 34 females and 30 males. The mean age of group 1 was 35.5 years (SD=16.9). Group 2 (completed questionnaire 2) had a total of 49 participants including 25 females and 24 males. The mean age of group 2 was 25.1 years (SD=16.4).
Questionnaire 1 was designed to measure self-reported fear and avoidance of 29 small harmless animals and insects, including rats, ants, moths and crows. Participants rated these animals on two scales, fear scale and nearness scale. On the fear scale, participants were asked to rate how fearful they were of the animal using a three-point scale (1=not afraid, 2=quite afraid, 3= very afraid). On the nearness scale, participants were asked to rate how near they would be prepared to go to the animal or insect, using a five-point scale (1=enjoy picking it up, 2=would pick it up, but unpleasant, 3=touch it or go within six inches, 4=stand one to six feet away, 5=move further than six feet away). This scale was included because it was assumed that participants would be only ‘quite afraid’ or ‘very afraid’ of a small percentage of the animals given. Where the animals might have been thought of as being harmful, for example, grass snake and jelly fish, the instruction ‘not harmful’ was written next to them and participants were asked to rate them as harmless. Participants were also instructed that as some animals and insects are difficult to pick up in the wild, imagine if they are injured in some way, for example, if the bird has a broken wing.
Questionnaire 2 was designed to measure participant’s ratings of the same 29 animals and insects as in questionnaire 1, along four perceptual dimensions. The participants were asked to rate how ‘ugly’, ‘slimy’, ‘speedy’ and how ‘suddenly’ the animals appeared to move. A three-point rating scale was used (1=not, 2=quite, 3=very). Participants were asked informal follow-up questions after both questionnaires, this technique was used to try to gain a bit more detail about what people actually fear in animals and insects.
Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’ – MODEL ANSWER
- Describe the findings and conclusions of Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’
Bennett-Levy and Marteau found from their study that rats were feared more than any other animals; this was because they were perceived as potentially harmful which was suggested by the informal follow-up questioning. In the ratings for nearness, females were found o be less willing to approach or pick up 10 of the animals than males. These animals included jellyfish, cockroach, ant, moth, crow, worm, beetle, slug, mouse and spider. Similar differences in both males and females were found in the fear ratings. However, there were no notable sex differences in ratings of ugliness, sliminess, speediness and suddenness of movements (so although men were generally less fearful than women, the characteristics of animals to which they respond appear to be the same). Speediness and suddenness of movements were found to be highly correlated, showing a positive correlation of +0.95. The correlation between nearness and suddenness of movement was +0.05, but when the effect of ugliness was removed this rose to +0.61. Fear, speediness and nearness all showed similar correlations. Bennett-Levy and Marteau also found that all four ratings of the perceptual characteristics were related to both fear and nearness. “The results of this study suggest that the perceptual characteristics of animals are of some importance in determining their positive or negative appraisal by humans.” This suggests that what an animal looks like determines how a person judges it. Ugly, slimy and suddenly-moving animals are more likely to be feared and avoided than ones without these characteristics. This implies that it is not particular species that evolution has prepared us to fear, but certain perceptual aspects of animals. The informal interviews indicated that tactile properties (‘feel’) of animals and the sounds they made were also important variables in evoking fear responses. Although participants were advised to view all the animals as harmless, the researchers found through informal follow-up questioning that this still had some effect on the ratings given.
Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’ – MODEL ANSWER
4. Evaluate the methodology of Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’
Bennett-Levy and Marteau used questionnaires and correlational analysis in their study, these are the two types of methodology I have chosen to discuss and evaluate. Questionnaires are considered to be a good method because they allow a large amount of information to be obtained in a short space of time. In this case, Bennett-Levy and Marteau handed questionnaires to participants who were attending a health centre, which saved time because the participants were there. Another advantage of using questionnaires is that they are economical to produce and distribute. However, participants may not have answered the questions truthfully, in this research the participants may have lied about their fears because they were embarrassed. Men may be less likely to admit to some of their fears because they are worried about how they may be perceived.
Bennett-Levy and Marteau used a correlational analysis and the advantage of this is that it provided information of the strength of the relationship between variables. In this research it provided clear relationships between all four ratings of perceptual characteristics and showed that all are related to both fear and nearness. However, it is impossible to establish cause and effect through correlation, so it cannot be said for example, that ‘sliminess’ of an animal causes fear of it. Other factors may have affected the correlations such as the participant having previous negative experiences with these animals which were not taken into account by the researchers.
It was important that Bennett-Levy and Marteau used a similar number of male and female participants in their study, it allowed responses to be analysed and compared for sex differences. Also, the fact that Bennett-Levy and Marteau used a structured questionnaire which required participants to rate their levels of fear and avoidance meant that this study had internal reliability.
Another factor that may have affected the results is individual differences. Each participant would have a unique and subjective view of each animal and this would also have affected their ratings of it. In addition, the sample was an opportunity sample of British people attending a health centre, these people may not be representative of the wider population and it may therefore be difficult to generalise the findings to other populations, i.e. different cultures (where perceptions of these animals may well by different). Internal validity could be lowered because participants ignored the experimenters’ instructions that the animals were harmless, as rats were perceived by people to be harmful so this was a confounding variable. Also there may be ethical issues; participants may feel uncomfortable and distressed if they have to give their responses to something they fear. This study therefore could be accused of not protecting it’s participants from distress?
Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’ – MODEL ANSWER
- With reference to alternative research, critically assess Bennett-Levy & Marteau (1984) ‘Fear of animals: What is prepared?’
There is much research to support the idea of preparedness in the acquisition of phobias, just like Bennett-Levy and Marteau have done, however, many studies use non-human animals, and use experimental research methods.
Cook and Mineka (1990) conducted a series of studies where laboratory reared monkeys watched videotapes of other monkeys behaving fearfully with a toy snake. The result was that the observer monkeys later displayed a fearful response to these stimuli, whereas the same learning tended not to occur if observer monkeys were shown identical videos but this time with artificial flowers or toy rabbits. Cook and Mineka also demonstrated that observing other less fearful monkeys could prevent certain fears developing. If a monkey is exposed to another monkey behaving non-fearfully with a toy snake or a toy crocodile, they tend not to develop the fear response. Both these studies contradict Bennett-Levy and Marteau’s findings because it shows that Cook and Mineka demonstrated social learning (observational learning) of fear when exposed to a certain stimulus.
Regan and Howard (1995) conditioned human participants by showing slides of ‘fear-relevant’ (FR, i.e. Spider) or ‘fear-irrelevant’ (FI, i.e. Flower) stimuli followed by a white noise. Later, when the noise was played the humans were more likely to demonstrate a fear response when the white noise had been associated with a fear-relevant stimulus as opposed to a fear-irrelevant stimulus. This study can be seen to support Bennett-Levy and Marteau’s findings, in that the association was only found for ‘fear relevant’ stimuli, therefore suggesting that we have an innate predisposition to fear certain animals.
If we explain phobias in terms of biological preparedness, then all cultures should be equally scared of certain stimuli, for example, animals that make sudden movements. However, fear of spiders have been shown to be restricted to Europeans and their descendants (Davey, 1994). In many African cultures for example, the spider is seen as a wise creature and where the spider lives is cleaned and protected by local people.
McNally reviewed a number of studies and suggested that we develop an expectancy bias against certain relevant stimuli. This is a development of Bennett-Levy and Marteau’s study and Davey (1995) further developed this idea by suggesting that we expect that fear relevant stimuli will produce a negative consequence in the future and therefore fear certain animals. Davey’s idea suggests that phobias are not explained through evolutionary psychology.
