Transcription
[Music] Oh my god. Oh, is this, is this okay? Don't touch it. Don't touch. No, don't touch it.
They don't seem that concerned at all, which is concerning me. I know. It's unbelievable to see, isn't it? Our infants aren't fussed about the makes it all. They're far more interested in their toys. In fact, psychologists believe that along with heights, there's only one other fear that appears this early in our development: the fear of loud noises. All of the others, including the fear of snakes, are learned later.
Babies, even when they're very young, are very, very good at watching the eyes and the emotional expression of their caregivers. And so, if something new or weird or different occurs, the child will often check in with their caregiver's face to go, "Is this something I need to worry about or not?" And in that split second, if the caregiver shows fear, the child will often react with fear as well.
I wonder how the parents feel watching this. This is set up to be very safe. These are trained snakes that are used to being with humans. They're nonvenomous. They're nonvenomous. I'm sorry. So, once you've learned to fear them, it's an awful feeling. But we start out like this. But we start out fearing at all. Touching it on the face? Yeah, just no fear at all. She hasn't learned there's anything to worry about with snakes.
Now, being taught to be wary of animals like snakes is a useful life skill, 'cause some species can be dangerous. So, if fears can be learned, is it possible to unlearn them too?
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