Reduced to a screaming girl

[salsabike]

I've read somewhere that the two phobias that seem to be inborn and common to all infants are fear of falling and fear of sudden loud noises. They did some great research on the fear of falling in infants--I remember seeing the films of the research in my Visual Perception class in college. Phobias about animals seem to vary more from person to person. Like...I like snakes, bats, don't really mind rats, like mice. But bees, especially yellowjackets---reduced to a screaming girl.

[NoNo]

That's really interesting that they've been able to isolate those fears in infants. I think my fear of spiders is probably from seeing Arachnaphobia when I was really young. There also seemed to be a lot of them in our house, including the fabled Sunday that a nest decided to hatch over our table just as we were sitting down to breakfast

[OakLeaf]

I'm not sure a "phobia" of falling is innate in infants. That would mean they couldn't tolerate being held by a standing adult, which is obviously not the case. You want to see screaming girl, talk me into getting on somebody's shoulders...

[Tuckervill]

It's not a phobia. It's a reflex; the Moro reflex. It's innate.

Karen