Fear Of Dogs: Where Does It Come From?
A fear of dogs, like any phobia, is not something that simply materializes out of nowhere. Researchers have found strong support for the “importance of conditioning” in the creation of fears. In other words, a person with a phobia has usually had a range of experiences that lead to a fear developing in them. And yet, there are people who have similarly painful or frightening experiences who may never develop a phobia. So when it comes to a fear of dogs, a conditioning model on its own is not enough to explain why a bad experience should generate a fear of dogs in some people but not in others. If conditioning does play a role, there must also be other factors.
In this archival study, researchers wanted to “investigate the role of conditioning experiences in the origins of fear, and to identify possible co-factors that might influence the likelihood of a painful or traumatic incident giving rise to longlasting fear of stimuli associated with that incident.” The choice of a fear of dogs was actually incidental: the researchers identified it as a simple phobia, and that frightening experiences with dogs are not uncommon.
Interestingly, the researchers didn’t just study adults. They planned from the outset to supplement their study of adults with a look at a fear of dogs in children. They studied 8–9 year olds because younger children had trouble answering their questions. The researchers gave 100 adults and 30 children a similar questionnaire. For the adults, the questionnaire comprised three sections. The first section asked about dog companionship and attacks. The second section asked about experiences and reactions to dogs. And the third section was only for people who had expressed a fear of dogs. The questionnaire for the children contained simplified versions of sections one and two.
Of the 100 adults that did the survey, 75 had a “low fear of dogs.” And 25 had a “high fear of dogs.” In the group of 75, four respondents reported no current fear but said they once had a fear of dogs. Of the children, nine gave conflicting responses. And the remaining 21 children were split down the middle (11 and 10) with a fear or no fear of dogs, respectively. Based on this and other observations, the researchers conclude that conditioning events producing a fear of dogs should be considered “non-proven.” And they note that their observations of children suggest that “information transmission may be more important in engendering fear of dogs than studies of adults might suggest.”
For animal advocates, this archival study shows that the fear of dogs is not a simple “call and response” phenomenon. And it shows that there are a variety of factors that can play a role in the creation and strengthening of a phobia.