Fear of Insects Runs in the Family, Study of Iranian Schoolchildren Finds

For most children, an insect scuttling across the classroom floor is a minor distraction. For some, it triggers a cascade of dread that shapes how they play, learn, and engage with the natural world. A new study from Iran, published in BMC Psychology, offers one of the most detailed portraits yet of how insect-related fear and avoidance develops in school-aged children, and the findings suggest that the roots of this fear lie not only within the child but within the family environment that surrounds them.

The research team, led by Arman Latifi of Maragheh University of Medical Sciences and colleagues at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, surveyed 1,370 students in East Azerbaijan Province with a mean age of 13.85 years, about two-thirds of whom were female. Using multistage stratified random sampling, the investigators recruited participants from schools across the province and administered a validated 32-item questionnaire covering four domains: knowledge about insects, insect-related fear and avoidance, behavioral responses toward insects, and personal fear and anxiety. The study, published on 25 September 2026, was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, and written informed consent was obtained from the parents of all participating children.

The results reveal a moderate overall level of insect-related fear and avoidance among the students. Mean scores were 14.82 for knowledge on a scale running from 4 to 20, 62.16 for insect-related fear and avoidance, 7.44 for behavioral responses, and 14.88 for personal fear and anxiety. Perhaps the most striking statistical finding was the strength of the relationship between general fearfulness and insect-specific fear: insect-related fear and avoidance correlated moderately and positively with personal fear and anxiety, with a correlation coefficient of 0.440 that was highly statistically significant. In other words, children who tended to be more anxious and fearful in general were substantially more likely to fear and avoid insects in particular.

Behavioral responses told a similar story. The correlation between insect-related fear and avoidance and behavioral responses toward insects was 0.337, again highly significant. Children who reported stronger avoidance behaviors, such as leaving a room or refusing to go outdoors when insects were present, also scored higher on the fear and avoidance measure. By contrast, the relationship between knowledge and fear was weak but consistently inverse, with a correlation coefficient of minus 0.108. Children who knew more about insects tended, on average, to fear them slightly less, a pattern that hints at the potential of ecological education to soften aversive responses to the natural world.

To disentangle the independent contributions of each factor, the researchers turned to multiple linear regression, a statistical technique that estimates the unique association of each variable with the outcome while holding all other variables constant. In this adjusted model, three factors emerged as significant predictors of higher insect-related fear and avoidance: higher behavioral-response scores with a standardized coefficient of 0.210, higher personal fear and anxiety with a coefficient of 0.314, and reported family fear of insects with a coefficient of 0.098. The family effect, though smaller in magnitude, is scientifically notable, because it points to a possible transmission pathway through which parental and sibling reactions to insects may shape a child’s own emotional responses over time.

Demographic factors also left their mark. Male gender was associated with lower insect-related fear and avoidance, with a standardized coefficient of minus 0.151, and attendance at private schools was likewise linked to lower scores, with a coefficient of minus 0.080. The gender difference aligns with a broader body of research on fear and anxiety in childhood, which has repeatedly documented higher rates of specific fears among girls, though the mechanisms behind this gap remain debated, spanning biological predispositions, socialization patterns, and differing expectations about how boys and girls are permitted to express fear.

One of the most technically interesting aspects of the study is its treatment of knowledge as a potentially nonlinear predictor. Rather than assuming that each additional unit of insect knowledge reduces fear by the same amount, the researchers included both a linear and a quadratic term in their regression model. Both components were significant and negative: the linear component had a standardized coefficient of minus 0.136 and the quadratic component minus 0.123, the latter significant at P less than 0.001. This curved relationship means that the fear-reducing effect of knowledge is not constant across the knowledge spectrum. The researchers estimated the turning point of the curve at approximately 11.8 on the 4-to-20 knowledge scale, below the sample mean of 14.82, suggesting that among these students, additional knowledge continued to be associated with lower fear, but with a changing gradient as knowledge increased.

The full model accounted for 29.7 percent of the variance in insect-related fear and avoidance, with an adjusted R-squared of 0.287. While this leaves the majority of individual variation unexplained, as is typical in psychological research on complex emotional traits, it demonstrates that a combination of demographic characteristics, family context, general anxiety, behavioral habits, and knowledge can together paint a meaningful picture of why some children shrink from insects while others do not. The authors are careful to note that their findings support a multidimensional understanding of children’s insect- and arachnid-related fear and avoidance, but do not constitute clinical diagnoses of specific phobias, which require formal psychiatric evaluation.

The broader significance of the work lies in its setting and its implications. Most research on insect and spider fear has been conducted in Western populations, and data from non-Western contexts have been scarce despite the fact that cultural attitudes toward insects vary enormously across societies. By providing validated measurements from more than a thousand Iranian students, the study fills an important geographical gap and suggests that the psychological architecture of insect fear, linking general anxiety, avoidance behavior, and family modeling, may operate across cultural boundaries. The authors argue that educational and exposure-based approaches may warrant further investigation in relation to fear-related responses and ecological literacy, a suggestion with real-world weight, since children who avoid insects may also disengage from outdoor activities and from learning about biodiversity, at a time when ecological education is increasingly urgent.

For parents and educators, the message embedded in the data is subtle but clear. The independent association between reported family fear of insects and children’s own fear scores suggests that adult reactions to a wasp at a picnic or a spider in the bathtub are not merely private moments; they may be small lessons in fear delivered to watching children. Conversely, the negative association between knowledge and fear, particularly the significant quadratic component, supports the idea that building genuine ecological understanding, teaching children what insects do, why they matter, and which ones actually pose risks, could be a practical lever for reducing avoidance and nurturing a healthier relationship between the next generation and the six-legged majority of life on Earth.

Subject of Research: Insect-related fear and avoidance among school-aged children in Iran and its demographic, family, and psychological associations

Article Title: Insect-related fear and avoidance among Iranian school-aged children: associations with knowledge, behavioral responses, and reported family fear

Article References: Latifi, A., Jafari-Koshki, T., Alizadeh, M., Farahbakhsh, M., Yousefi, S., Rahimi, S., & Abbasi, M. (2026). Insect-related fear and avoidance among Iranian school-aged children: associations with knowledge, behavioral responses, and reported family fear. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05685-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05685-x

Keywords: insect fear, arachnophobia, children, anxiety, behavioral avoidance, family fear, entomophobia, Iran, ecological literacy, cross-sectional study, knowledge, regression analysis