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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Teaching people about spiders is a great way to reduce fear! You're a good friend!

Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Phobia, in the clinical sense, usually means requiring clinical intervention, daily life is impacted, and/or quality of life is lowered/negatively impacted by the phobia. I always view a lot of papers on phobias w caution because sometimes they don't make the distinction.

Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

P.S. if you read papers on arachnophobia or any phobia, check if the paper is discussing a clinical phobia or more general fear. Phobia is typically designated to a disorder that requires clinical intervention but can also mean things like "irrational and/or excessive response."

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

This list is largely papers I find the most interesting/informative and is obviously not exhaustive. If other people have more they want to share, please do! I hope people enjoy them and ask more questions about what it means to be afraid of spiders and how to eliminate fear and phobia!

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Hinze et al. 2021 | Spider Phobia: Neural Networks Informing Diagnosis and (Virtual/Augmented Reality-Based) Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy—A Narrative Review

Funky stuff happens in the brain when you're scared of spiders. VR might help!

www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Frontiers | Spider Phobia: Neural Networks Informing Diagnosis and (Virtual/Augmented Reality-Based) Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy—A Narrative Review

Recent fMRI studies on specific animal phobias, particularly spider phobia (arachnophobia), have identified a large variety of specific brain regions involve...

www.frontiersin.org

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Pace-Schott et al. 2012 | Sleep promotes consolidation and generalization of extinction learning in simulated exposure therapy for spider fear

Take a nice nap after learning about spiders. :-)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22578824/

Sleep promotes consolidation and generalization of extinction learning in simulated exposure therapy for spider fear - PubMed

Simulated exposure therapy for spider phobia served as a clinically naturalistic model to study effects of sleep on extinction. Spider-fearing, young adult women (N = 66), instrumented for skin conduc...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Zvaríková et al. 2021 | What Makes Spiders Frightening and Disgusting to People?

Let's manipulate pictures of spiders and ask people why they're afraid of the picture so we can make the scariest spider picture possible (I made that last part up)

www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...

Frontiers | What Makes Spiders Frightening and Disgusting to People?

The quality of human-animal interactions may crucially influence conservation efforts. Unfortunately, some animals are considered notoriously unpopular by th...

www.frontiersin.org

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Mammola et al. 2022 | The global spread of misinformation on spiders

SO many amazing arachnologists contributed to this paper on modern *GLOBAL* depictions of spiders in online newspaper articles. 47% of articles contained errors and 43% were sensationalist.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The global spread of misinformation on spiders

In the internet era, the digital architecture that keeps us connected and informed may also amplify the spread of misinformation. This problem is gain…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Cavell 2018 | Arachnophobia and Early English Literature

Many great examples of depictions of spiders across time in English lit. My favorite is the idea of how spiders went from an notion of artistry (e.g. weavers, architects) to disgust.

pure-oai.bham.ac.uk/ws/portalfil...

pure-oai.bham.ac.uk

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

Rakison 2009 | Does women's greater fear of snakes and spiders originate in infancy?

A lot to chew on or this one. Female infants habituated faster to negative emoticons paired with spiders faster than male infants.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Does women's greater fear of snakes and spiders originate in infancy?

Previous studies with adult humans and nonhuman animals revealed more rapid fear learning for spiders and snakes than for mushrooms and flowers. The c…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

1. Gerdes et al 2009 | Spiders are special: fear and disgust evoked by pictures of arthropods

Love this one a lot. Participants rated images of arthropods. Spiders elicit significantly more fear and disgust than other arthropods in this study.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Spiders are special: fear and disgust evoked by pictures of arthropods

Because all spiders are predators and most subdue their prey with poison, it has been suggested that fear of spiders is an evolutionary adaptation. Ho…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 10h

🧵 ARACHNOPHOBIA GREATEST HITS

A thread of my favorite arachnophobia papers dedicated to my friends @humanbyweight.bsky.social and @entobiologist.bsky.social, with increasingly unserious character limited summaries.

Is this the science version of making somebody a mixtape?

Okay, here we go 👇🕷️

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 11h

YES PLEASE!!!

Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 14h

Literally one of the first places I want to go when I return from Korea.

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 1d

Also, happy to share my favorite/interesting arachnophobia papers, as somebody who has done a lot of lit searchers and compiling in this subject!

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 1d

There are many theories on the origins of arachnophobia, from biological to sociocultural. We know that there is no singular origin, but if anything, I’m grateful that discussing arachnophobia with people has brought me closer to many people, and in turn, brought them closer to nature! 🕷️🕸️

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 1d

5. Perhaps most notably, Arachnophobia has influenced SciComm/Outreach practices, asking us to be intentional and effective in how we speak and teach about animals to quell fear and incite curiosity in all kinds of people.

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 1d

4. My favorite amongst these is that there are researchers using arachnophobia to understand how writing, art, and story telling influence perceptions. I love learning about how people have talked about and depicted spiders across time and cultures.

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 1d

Studying Arachnophobia is important bc:

1. It pushes for greater understanding of neurobiology and the mechanisms of fear & disgust

2. Similarly, it drives healthcare innovation in treating clinical phobias E.g. VR therapy

3. It has created many questions and studies around “nature vs nurture”

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 1d

🧵Arachnophobia, while common, is unique amongst phobias bc often invokes an overlap of fear and disgust! This is not prevalent in other arthropod phobias. Interestingly, fear & disgust utilize the same neural network and have similar outputs, making them difficult to disentangle.

🦋 Alie of the Woods 🦋 @humanbyweight.bsky.social · 1d

Arachnophobia is interesting to me because it's so specific. Like, people generally aren't afraid of crabs, even though they're hairy and skitter around. And they're not afraid of bugs, even though they have about the same number of eyes. Most people will never even see a dangerous spider irl.

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Reposted by Jillian Kurovski 서정화

🌻OK MR. SUNSHINE!🌻 @entobiologist.bsky.social · 9d

hello fellow ecologists has anyone successfully applied to the grfp (in its current format) and would be willing to send me their application materials for my own reference? many thanks!! 🧪

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Jillian Kurovski 서정화 @bugsorbust.bsky.social · 16d

The RAPTURE? Ohhhh I thought you said D. RAPTOR. Damnit.

Photo of Dolomedes raptor sitting on a rock at night

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Reposted by Jillian Kurovski 서정화

蓮猫 Lotuscat @lotuscat.bsky.social · 24d

Female fishing spider (Dolomedes sulfureus) glaring at us as she clutches the egg sac with her jaws. I’ve posted a photo 3 months ago of one that's selensulfur color. This species come in wide range of colors. Tokikubo, Komoro, Nagano #Invertebrate #Insect
卵嚢を抱いたイオウイロハシリグモ。八つの目で睨みつける。長野県小諸市鴇久保 #虫

Close-up of the head of large spider covered with short brown hairs. Eight eyes in all on the front part.

Large brown spider with velvety, red-brown abdomen on the leaf. The long jaws are holding the egg sack closely against the lower part of the body. Long legs with black spikes.

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Reposted by Jillian Kurovski 서정화

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 28d

Not enough of you liked this. I was sitting on the couch cracking myself up making it. Have we given up on frivolity as a people? Smh.

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 28d

*Most* eels don’t wear wigs. Did you know that? Did you know that *important fact* about eels??

Well there are a LOT more eel facts where that came from. Most being, ya know, better and more useful eel facts. You better learn more with an eel facts advent calendar.

Get one at EelFacts.Net

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Reposted by Jillian Kurovski 서정화

Nancy 🪲SciBugs🪲 Miorelli @scibugs.bsky.social · 25d

The Empress!! I was so worried when I started because like ... all the spindly eggs - but where we have a whip scorpion with her noodly babies.

a stylistic image of a tailless whip scorpion with bright green babies and their noodly legs on her back. The text reads "3. The empress"

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