But if a child's parents encourage this revulsion, it can get ridiculous.
I am a little weird and do not have that instinct, but I think most people are born with it. I think the same applies to insects.
I have no qualms about handling almost anything unless I think it might hurt me. This is how I brought my daughter up, but she somehow disliked insects and spiders from an early age. She did not learn that from me. That is one reason I think it is an instinct.
I do have a phobia of cockroaches (the only bug I have a serious aversion to) and yet I can put that aside for a moment and realize that they are beautiful insects, although they are household pests. I do not think this is instinctive in me, but that I developed this phobia at an early age.
I also have no qualms about killing household pests, even if they do not disgust me. I am practical.
Of course there are cultures in which insects are regularly eaten, so this can certainly be learned. And really, what is the difference between eating a lobster and eating an insect? Both are nutritious. Yet our culture says one is disgusting and the other is delicious.
Some people, including scientists, think that humans have an instinctive fear of snakes. For example, they point out that infants pay more attention to objects that resemble snakes. What these people do not realize is that the infants actually retain an ancient instant to grab onto any object and especially tightly on rope-like objects. The reason is survival. Young primates are born with the same instincts to hold tightly onto the body hair of their mothers, because if they don't they will fall off and die, since their mothers have to climb trees with both hands and cannot secure their infants with one of her hands. Anyone who has had his/her hair pulled by an infant will have experienced this instinct. In fact, some infants pull their own hair because of the same instinct. Even though humans no longer climb trees and adult bodies are hairless, human infants still retain this ancient instinct.
If there is really no instinctive fear of snakes, then when and where did children develop the fear? From adults and the media as they develop of course. TV shows and movies often use snakes to scare people. Adults, who themselves learned to fear snakes, teach their children, either explicitly or by showing fear of snakes. Before children develop the fear, you can often see a group of children surrounding an educator holding a snake and show great curiosity, but no fear. They may hesitate to touch it and stay a short distance from it, but they do not show any instinctive fear.
People say that snakes are slimy and/or gross because they see a healthy, well feed snake with shiny scales and assume that it has a slime coat on it. Many snakes have a natural shimmer to their scales which helps the person in and out of their home tell them there is a snake there leave it alone.
The eww is a way to hide their fears. people are just terrified of them
snakes are not gross,...they are actually scary for many people,...so they may not admit it say eww instead of aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
I was at the Texas State Aquarium marveling over a Boa constrictor they had at the Amazon section and heard this girl yell "EEEEEeeeewwwww!" when she saw it. I don't quite understand why people do this. It's not like they stink, nor are they even slimy. Personally, I find them quite pleasant to the touch; almost would call them "soft." People don't point at a dog or cat and say "eeeewwww" when it's just laying there. (Dropping a turd or throwing up is different, obviously.) What is it that is so gross about a snake?
