Snakes are commonly misunderstood, and the way our parents or guardians talk to us about them could shape this misunderstanding, according to new research published in Anthrozoös.
The new study analyzes how snakes are often described with negative or objectifying language, leading children to think of snakes differently than they would other animals. This type of thinking may contribute to the endangerment of certain snake species. However, the study found that minimal intervention is enough to get children to change their perceptions of snakes.
“Childhood is a critical time for shaping someone’s attitudes and behaviors toward animals,” Jeff Loucks, a study co-author from the University of Oregon, said in a press release. “Snakes have a very negative reputation in Western societies and are commonly misunderstood.”
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Are We Naturally Wary of Snakes or Is It a Learned Behavior?
According to the study, snakes play a vital role in their ecosystems, yet many feel fear or disgust towards these reptiles. How individuals feel about snakes may play a role in their conservation, seeing as 450 snake species are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, according to the press release.
There is little known about how we develop these feelings, but it likely starts when we are children. According to Loucks, previous research has found that 54 percent feel some level of anxiety when it comes to seeing snakes, and that the average American dislikes them.
“Data indicate that it’s common for U.S. drivers to go out of their way to run over a snake,” Loucks said in the press release.
Finding the Root of Snake Disdain
To better understand the origins of these negative feelings, Loucks and lead study author Denée Buchko from the University of Regina examined how language and development contribute to snake antipathy.
For the study, the experiment consisted of 5-year-olds, their parents, snake images, and the language used around snakes. The team then used an induction task, a technique that prompts a certain behavior, to assess how similar kids believe snakes are to humans, as well as to other animals and inanimate objects.
“Before we gave them this task, we had parents look through a picture book of snakes with their child, and we also read children a storybook about a day in the life of a snake,” Loucks said. “The story book either referred to the snakes more like an object — with ‘it’ pronouns and not referencing feelings or thoughts — or more like a person, with ‘she’ pronouns and references to thoughts and feelings.”
How Opinions of Snakes are Influenced in Childhood
The results showed that when the child’s parents or guardians used negative language to refer to a snake, the child saw it as different from humans. The objectifying language in the storybook yielded the same results.
“Something unexpected, though, was that kids generally thought that snakes were similar to other non-human animals,” Loucks said. “So, we did a second study with different subjects, took away the picture book and the storybook, and just gave kids the induction task. In this case, they did not think that snakes were similar to humans or other animals.”
With a different set of test subjects, the research team reintroduced the picture and storybook to the experiment and found again that children thought snakes were not similar to humans but were similar to other animals, which were the same results as the previous study group.
“It seems as though 5-year-old kids, from Western cultures anyway, tend to think that snakes are very different from other animals, and negative and objectifying language might contribute to that,” Loucks said in the press release. “But some exposure to snakes and learning about their biological needs can act as an inoculation against negative attitudes toward snakes, which can help to engender care and respect for these animals.”
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