Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
Although phobia can be partly acquired, researches have shown that instinct played an important role.
I think, phobias are completely acquired. A phobia is a mental illness.

If it was only environmental, siblings wouldn't be so clearly different, even opposite, in their fears, and the fear would be controllable using one's cerebral cortex (reason, self-control...).
Actually, this is an argument against instinct. If it really was hardwired into our brains, there wouldn't be much room for individual deviation.

It is apparently the result of millions of years of evolution.
In the case of snakes, I could see a certain probability for an evolutionary background to fear. There actually could be an advantage in selection if you don't come near snakes.
But spiders? 99.9 % (well, don't really know the number) of all spiders people encounter are absolutely harmless.
Cockroaches? I don't really see any evolutionary advantage here.
Wasps? You even can come very close to a wasps' nest without anything happening. This summer I almost stuck my nose into one. Nothing happened.

I am not sure if you have any such phobia, but I have tried to control my emotions about spiders and the best I could do is stay reasonably calm when I was at least 2m away from a giant spider
No real phobia here. I have a deep dislike for mosquitos, though. With good reason, if in a room with other people it seems that I'm always the only one to get stung.


Nice link, BTW. But one thing has to be said about human instincts: the details are largely unknown. There hasn't been enough research yet into the influence of instinct on certain aspects of our life.