The expert spoke about the strangest phobias: the fear of buttons and long words

The lion’s share of Russians – 8 out of 10 – suffer from certain phobias. At the same time, male Russians are most afraid of heights, and Russian women are most afraid of snakes. This conclusion was reached by VTsIOM sociologists who decided to take an interest in the phobias of Russians. “MK” decided to find out what other phobias are encountered, and which of them can be called, to put it mildly, strange.

Physiologists call fear a natural human response to danger – it helps to mobilize forces and, as a result, helps to survive. However, in some cases, fears begin to be pathological in nature – it is most difficult to cope with such fears. They are called phobias.

In the world, the most common phobias are fear of heights, fear of closed (claustrophobia) or open (agoraphobia) spaces, fear of spiders (arachnophobia), etc. However, Russians have a slightly different picture.

As VTsIOM found out, the majority (78%) of Russians face unaccountable fears, who were offered a list of the 14 most common phobias. It is expected that phobias are more common in women (84%) and slightly less (71%) in men. The most popular fear of Russians is the fear of heights (acrophobia). It affects a third of the country’s population. And almost the same number (28%) suffer from ophidiophobia – the fear of snakes. At the same time, snakephobia tops the rating of women’s fears – 35% compared to 19% of men. In addition, older people are more likely to be afraid of snakes – such 34%, while in young people 18-24 years old, ophidiophobia occurs only in 17% of cases. In the top three phobias of compatriots, aquaphobia is the fear of water spaces and depth, which was admitted by 24% of respondents (women are afraid of water more often than men – 32% versus 15%).

Dentophobia (fear of dentists), entomophobia (fear of insects) and arachnophobia (fear of spiders) are next in the top of Russian phobias — 18% each. By the way, the fear of dentists is the only one from the presented rating that men suffer from more often than women (21% versus 16%). But women are significantly more likely than men to be afraid of spiders and insects (25% and 10%). What is curious: the higher the level of education, the more often people suffer from arachnophobia and entomophobia.

Fifth place in the ranking – claustrophobia, which she shared with verminophobia – the fear of microorganisms, bacteria and viruses. 12% of the respondents admitted to them. The older the Russians, the more often they are afraid of pathogens of infectious diseases: sociologists see this as a consequence of the experienced pandemic.

Citizens of the Russian Federation are not so often afraid of public speaking (glossophobia) and flying on an airplane (aerophobia) – 11% and 10%, respectively. Women are twice as afraid of flying as men, and another 15% of women or 2% of men in the country suffer from brontophobia – the fear of thunder and lightning. The older generation is afraid of thunderstorms more often – 16%, as well as villagers – 14%.

9% of Russians admit to demophobia – the fear of the crowd. Residents of megacities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) celebrate it explainably more often (13%).

Another 8% of respondents are afraid of the sight of blood (hemophobia). This fear is more common among young people (17%). 5% of Russians are afraid of the dark (nyctophobia), among young people there are 12%.

Well, in last place among Russians is the fear of clowns (coulrophobia), which is feared by 3% of respondents in general and 7% of respondents under the age of 25.

When Russians were asked to choose their answer options that went beyond the list of 14 phobias, they also named fears of mice, dolls, God, dogs, war, fire, death, disease, other people, poverty, hunger, loneliness, speed, birds, etc. .

Top 3 phobias in men are fear of heights (25%), dentists (21%) and snakes (19%), and in women – snakes (35%), heights (34%) and water spaces (32%).

Meanwhile, in past years, experts from one of the largest Russian communications agencies compiled the so-called “National Anxiety Index” – based on the analysis of the media and social media. For example, in 2019, compatriots named such fears as a gas explosion in homes, a sharp rise in prices, and an arms race. In addition, there were fears of suffering from stray dogs, the introduction of a sovereign Runet and environmental problems. Residents of megacities called such phobias as the fear of becoming a victim of a terrorist attack or a man-made disaster. But in 2021, the phobia associated with vaccination came out on top. The top three concerns were also fears of tick attacks and recognition as a foreign agent, and the top ten significant topics that worry the minds of citizens were telephone and bank fraud, vacation uncertainty, Indian “black mold” and insecurity of children in schools.

Meanwhile, in recent years, the list of phobias that have been identified in people around the world has been constantly growing. Of the most curious in a conversation with “MK” psychologist Andrey Zvonarev called hippopotamomonstrosesskippedalophobia (fear of long words), lacanophobia (fear of vegetables, at the sight of which a person gets dizzy, nausea, palpitations), nephophobia (fear of clouds), kumpunophobia (fear of buttons), dorophobia (fear of receiving or giving gifts), dextrophobia ( fear of objects located to the right of the patient), omphalophobia (fear of navels), pogonophobia (not what you thought, but fear of beards), punctuophobia (fear of receiving a message with a dot at the end): “People have a lot of fears. However, I do not think that the real prevalence of phobias as pathological conditions reaches 80%. Many will say that they are afraid of spiders or mice – but in fact, most often such fears will fit into the norm. Having met a bear in the forest, 100% of people will be frightened. A surgeon friend of mine says to his patients: “Those who are not afraid of surgery, we refer them to a psychiatrist for consultation.” However, if a person really has a phobia, for example, he cannot even look at the image of an airplane and refuses to fly, then it is not so easy to cope with such conditions. We need a long-term work of a psychologist, which, unfortunately, does not guarantee results.”