A fascinating study titled “It was as big as my head, I swear! Biased spider size estimation in spider phobia” was published this month.

Basically the findings have been summarized in the study’s title, but to spell it out again clearly:

The researchers found that the more afraid a person is of spiders, the bigger (and thus more threatening) he perceives spiders to be.

Here is how the researches from Ohio State University set up the experiment.

First, they recruited 57 arachnophobes.

Then they showed them live tarantulas.

They asked each participant to tell them how scared they were, and also how large the spiders were.

When the researches then sat down to evaluate the data, they found that the more afraid a person was of the spiders, the larger he estimated their sizes.

This is something that I was already very aware of from my practical experience from working with arachnophobes, and it’s great to see that someone has finally confirmed this anecdotal observation with hard science.

Source: Vasey, M. W., Vilensky, M. R., Heath, J. H., Harbaugh, C. N., Buffington, A. G., & Fazio, R. H. (2011). It was as big as my head, I swear! Biased spider size estimation in spider phobia. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 26(1), 20-24. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21906909

You probably know that there are all kinds of phobias – but a helmetophobia? Yep, even that exists.

And as you guess, it’s the fear of wearing helmets. Which is really a paradoxical fear, because after all, wearing a helmet is something we do to protect ourselves, something that provides safety. Yet, some people are incredibly scared of wearing a helmet.

Oftentimes people are scared that a helmet might strangle them, or the feeling of pressure a helmet exerts on their head can cause them to panic. Some patients have described it as if their head is stuck in a clamp and about to be crushed.

It’s easy to overcome helmet phobia with the usual means of getting rid of phobias.

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