Collection · 11 entries
Fears That Are Right About Their Object
A phobia is defined as fear out of proportion to the danger, and a handful of entries in this catalogue sit awkwardly against that definition. Bats carry rabies, and a 2011 paper on chiroptophobia argues the aversion tracks a real risk. Faeces carry disease, and aversion to them is close to universal and measurable across cultures. A fear of drowning is correct about drowning, and the fear of gaining weight anticipates penalties in marriage, education and employment that are documented rather than imagined. In each case the object is genuinely dangerous or the consequence genuinely arrives.
What makes these worth reading together is that the proportion test does not fail cleanly. A fear can be right about its object and still ruin a life, which is what separates a well-calibrated caution from a phobia: not whether the danger is real, but what the fear costs the person carrying it and whether the avoidance is proportionate to the risk rather than to the dread. Two members show the trap most clearly. The fear of drowning predicts never learning to swim, which raises the risk it names, and the fear of being scratched has a record consisting almost entirely of infections that followed a scratch.
Hand-set, never alphabetical
The set, in order
11 entries
- Fear of BatsA 2011 paper argues chiroptophobia tracks rabies and other bat-related risks rather than distorting them
- Fear of FecesAversion is close to universal, measured across cultures, and disease is why
- Fear of DrowningCorrect about drowning, and the avoidance removes the swimming competence that lowers the risk
- Fear of Gaining WeightThe penalties it anticipates are documented in marriage, education and employment
- Fear of FallingShared with most other mammals and present in infants who have never fallen
- Fear of Being ScratchedThe record behind the word is largely infections that followed a scratch
- Fear of BurglarsThe encyclopedia calls it one of the greatest fears of city dwellers, and burglary happens
- Fear of MushroomsThe Wassons proposed in 1957 that cultures divide into mushroom-loving and mushroom-fearing, and some mushrooms kill
- Fear of MachinesThe machines named as the strongest triggers are shredders and grinders, which take fingers
- Fear of WaspsCalled relatively common by the encyclopedia, and wasps sting
- Fear of Being RobbedRobbery is legally defined as theft by force or fear, so the fear is inside the offence
Keep going
The other collections
- Words That Are Not PhobiasPhotophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, chromophobia. Where the suffix does scientific, political or sociological work instead of naming a fear.
- Medical and Dental FearsThe fears whose avoidance is itself the danger. Needles, dentists, doctors, hospitals and scans, and what avoiding each one costs the person avoiding it.
- Most Common PhobiasSpiders, heights, flying, the dentist, public speaking: the phobias most often called common, each with the prevalence figure the claim rests on.
- One Word, Two Different FearsAerophobia, phonophobia, basophobia: terms carrying two unrelated senses, with the collision traced and the usable meaning named.