The infested mind : why humans fear, loathe, and love insects / Jeffrey Lockwood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lockwood, Jeffrey Alan, 1960-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Insect phobia.

Fear.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (230 pages ) illustrations (black and white)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Examines the unique psychological attitude of human beings toward insects, and discusses why people are scared, disgusted, or enthralled by them. The psychological connections between humans and insects are tantalizing and complex. Through both evolutionary associations and cultural representations, insects have deeply infested our minds. They frighten, disgust, and sometimes enchant us. Whatever the case, few of us are ambivalent in the face of wasps, cockroaches, spiders, maggots, crickets or butterflies. They arouse terror, nausea, fascination-but rarely, if ever, indifference. And the costs of fear can be high, bothin terms of the quality of individual lives and with regard to our social responses, from soaking our food with insecticides to overlooking our dependence on the ecological roles of insects (including those on the brink of extinction). The book is an examination of what scientists, philosophers, andwriters have learned about the human-insect relationship. Jeffrey Lockwood is an entomologist himself and yet still experiences bouts of entomophobia; in fact, his seemingly paradoxical response to certain insects and scenarios is what prompted him to write this book. The book explores the nature of anxiety and phobia and the line between them. It examines entomophobia in the context of the nature-nurture debate, posing the question: how much of our fear of insects can be attributed to ourancestors' predisposition to avoid insects to benefit their own survival, and how much is learned through parents? Using his own and others' experiences with entomophobia as case studies, Lockwood breaks down common reactions to insects, distinguishing between fear and disgust, and inviting the reader toconsider his/her own emotional, cognitive, and physiological reactions to insects in a new light.

Contents:

Prologue: the infestation begins

The nature of fear and the fear of nature

Evolutionary psychology: survival of the scaredest

Learning to fear: little Miss Muffett's lesson

A fly in our mental soup: how insects push our disgust buttons

The maggoty mind: a natural history of disgust

The terrible trio: imagining insects into our lives

Treating the infested mind: exterminating entomophobia

Overcoming fear and disgust for fun and profit: the professionals

The infatuated mind: entomophilia as the human condition

Entomapatheia: can't we just live and let live?

Back to the real world: good night, sleep tight or maybe not

Epilogue: insects as a psychological precipice.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-937493-7

0-19-993020-1

OCLC:

859536552