The spiders have long scary legs. Some spiders even bite. But Spider-Man is another story. He might help people see spiders less negatively, a new study finds.
After Menachem Ben-Ezra, a proud fan of the Marvel films and also a psychologist, saw the movie Ant-Man and the Wasp (黄蜂), he walked out with a sudden scientific idea that he should measure people before they went into the theater, and afterwards to see if the fear of ants would be reduced or changed.
Ben-Ezra and his colleagues asked 424 people questions, about one-quarter of them about spiders, such as" Did you find them scary?" "Did seeing one make your hearts race and palms sweat?" A second group received similar questions, this time about ants. The last two groups got the same questions about other insects. Afterward, everyone watched videos. Group one got a Spider-Man movie. Group two saw Ant-Man and the Wasp. Groups three and four watched unrelated video--wheat waving peacefully in the breeze.
After viewing the movie, Ben-Ezra again asked the participants how they felt about spiders. ants or other insects in general—and found the ant and spider exposures seemed to make people insensitive and less afraid. Between3.5and6. 1 percent of people experience such a phobia (恐惧症) of spiders. Phobias can stop people from traveling, working and enjoying their lives.
Ben-Ezra hopes that their movie research might help people with phobias. But they caution that people with phobias shouldn't just run out and watch movies and expect their fear to go away. "What we did is only the first step in a very long road, "Ben-Ezra says. "We didn't say you'll be cured. We don't have evidence for that. "But eventually, presenting people's fears in a positive context—such as a superhero movie—might help people surmount their fear or disgust. After all, if spiders produce Spider-Man, maybe they're not so bad.
