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3 Scary and nasty beasts study With animal phobias being one of the most prevalent mental health disorders researchers wanted to investigate the creatures people found most scary and revolting - AQA - A-Level Psychology - Question 3 - 2021 - Paper 3
Question 3
3 Scary and nasty beasts study With animal phobias being one of the most prevalent mental health disorders researchers wanted to investigate the creatures people fo... show full transcript
Worked Solution & Example Answer:3 Scary and nasty beasts study With animal phobias being one of the most prevalent mental health disorders researchers wanted to investigate the creatures people found most scary and revolting - AQA - A-Level Psychology - Question 3 - 2021 - Paper 3
Step 1
Explain one weakness of the scary and nasty beasts study in terms of validity.
Answer
One significant weakness of the study's validity is the way participants rated their fear and disgust. Participants may have experienced embarrassment while rating their fear of certain creatures. This embarrassment can result in participants providing lower ratings for fear, thus skewing the results and not accurately reflecting their true feelings. For instance, individuals may have rated their fear of creatures like spiders lower than they genuinely feel out of concern for how their responses might be perceived.
Step 2
Using research evidence, explain how far evolution and natural selection could account for the findings of the scary and nasty beasts study.
Answer
Evolutionary psychology suggests that certain fears are biologically ingrained due to historical survival advantages. For example, humans may have evolved to be fearful of large predators like bulls, indicated by the fear rating of 3.84, as this could enhance survival through immediate threat recognition.
Additionally, certain creatures may have naturally provoked disgust due to their toxic or harmful traits, such as spiders and cockroaches. Spiders, rated at a fear level of 4.39, have venomous qualities that could threaten human safety. Conversely, animals like the tapeworm, which scored relatively high in disgust at 4.83, evoke fear as a means of avoiding potential health risks.
Research has shown that genetic factors can influence fear responses, linking traits to hereditary aspects. For instance, Chester et al. (2015) found a correlation between a specific genotype and increased aggression in response to threats, suggesting that individuals may inherit predispositions toward certain fears. Overall, evolution and natural selection can significantly explain some of the variability in reactions toward the creatures in this study.