Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Preparedness and Phobias

Preparedness and Phobias

Human fear responses to certain stimuli, such as darkness, heights, deep water, and blood, can often arise despite the absence of direct negative experiences. This phenomenon is rooted in evolutionary psychology, which posits that humans have developed a predisposition to fear stimuli that historically posed significant survival threats. This predisposition, known as preparedness, suggests that early humans who developed a fear of potentially dangerous entities, such as venomous snakes and...

Magical Thinking

Magical Thinking

Magical thinking encompasses the belief in assumptions that defy logical reasoning yet appear intuitively convincing. It is a common psychological phenomenon that persists across various cultural and individual contexts. While these assumptions contradict empirical evidence and scientific laws, they often serve meaningful psychological roles in promoting emotional resilience and a sense of control, especially under stress or uncertainty.Thought-Action Fusion and the Law of SimilarityA key...

Nightmares and Night Terrors

Nightmares and Night Terrors

Nightmares and night terrors represent two distinct types of sleep disturbances that differ in timing, characteristics, and the sleeper's recall of the event. Nightmares are vivid, disturbing dreams that usually awaken the sleeper from REM sleep, a stage of sleep where brain activity is high, and dreams are most frequent. Upon awakening, individuals often have detailed recollections of their nightmares, which can include themes of threats to survival, security, or self-esteem.
Nightmares...

Anxiety: Overview

Anxiety: Overview

Anxiety is a common mental disorder featuring excessive worry, fear, and apprehension, significantly affecting daily life. People with anxiety disorders experience persistent and intense anxiety, interrupting their everyday functioning.
Individuals with anxiety often experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including sweating, trembling, tachycardia, and disturbances in sleep patterns. These symptoms vary in intensity and frequency but are generally disruptive and distressing.

Panic Disorder

Panic Disorder

Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent and sudden minutes-long episodes of intense fear, known as panic attacks. These attacks may feel like heart attacks and often happen without warning or a specific cause. They can include symptoms such as rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, chest pain, trembling, sweating, dizziness, and a sense of helplessness. During a panic attack, individuals may feel as though they are experiencing a heart attack or are in a...

Extrasensory Perception

Extrasensory Perception

Extrasensory perception, or ESP, suggests the ability to perceive events beyond the conventional senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Parapsychologists, who research ESP and related psychic phenomena, categorize ESP into three main types: precognition, telepathy, and clairvoyance.
Precognition involves foreseeing future events, such as predicting an accident before it happens. An example of precognition could be someone dreaming about a specific event, like a car crash, which then occurs...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Motivational Pathways Diverge Between Frequent and Problematic Pornography Use.

International journal of sexual health : official journal of the World Association for Sexual Health·2026

Same author

Openness to "Sugar Relationships" Reflects Personality and Emotional Vulnerabilities in a Representative Sample of Hungarian Women.

Archives of sexual behavior·2026

Same author

Primacy vs. recency effects: the dominant role of recent over past dental experience in dental anxiety.

BMC oral health·2026

Same author

The Quality of the Home Environment During the First 2 Years of Life and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: A Study of Thai Agricultural Families.

Child: care, health and development·2026

Same author

Wet markets, live animals, and infection concerns in Thailand: A cross-sectional study.

One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands)·2026

Same author

ThreatSim: A novel stimuli database of threatening and nonthreatening image pairs rated for similarity.

Behavior research methods·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 31, 2025

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality

Published on: August 9, 2010

Super-natural fears.

Carlos M Coelho¹, Andras N Zsido², Panrapee Suttiwan³

¹Faculty of Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand; University Institute of Maia, Maia, Portugal; Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.

Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews

|June 29, 2021

Summary

Supernatural fears are easily acquired, possibly due to intuitive concepts like mind-body dualism and animism. These fears tap into evolutionarily prepared responses to danger, making them a key area for psychological research.

Keywords:

Beliefs Fear acquisition Preparedness Specific phobias Supernatural Unknown

More Related Videos

The Use of Traditional Fear Tests to Evaluate Different Emotional Circuits in Cattle

The Use of Traditional Fear Tests to Evaluate Different Emotional Circuits in Cattle

Published on: April 22, 2020

Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

Published on: November 22, 2024

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Oct 31, 2025

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality

Human Fear Conditioning Conducted in Full Immersion 3-Dimensional Virtual Reality

Published on: August 9, 2010

The Use of Traditional Fear Tests to Evaluate Different Emotional Circuits in Cattle

The Use of Traditional Fear Tests to Evaluate Different Emotional Circuits in Cattle

Published on: April 22, 2020

Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

Observational Fear as a Model of Affective Empathy in Mice

Published on: November 22, 2024

Area of Science:

Psychology
Neuroscience
Anthropology

Background:

Natural fears (e.g., animal phobias) are evolutionarily prepared and easily acquired.
Supernatural fears are less understood and differ from natural fears, not relying on direct experience.
Supernatural fears may stem from cognitive biases and cultural beliefs.

Purpose of the Study:

To synthesize multidisciplinary evidence on the nature of supernatural fears.
To propose that supernatural beliefs are inherently "super natural" – spontaneous and easily acquired.
To explore the evolutionary and cognitive underpinnings of supernatural fears.

Main Methods:

Multidisciplinary synthesis and collaborative review of existing literature.
Analysis of psychological and neuroscientific evidence.
Examination of cognitive biases and cultural influences.

Main Results:

Supernatural beliefs are proposed to be "super natural," occurring spontaneously and easily.
These beliefs may be rooted in intuitive concepts like mind-body dualism and animism.
Supernatural fears tap into evolutionarily prepared fear responses to potential dangers.

Conclusions:

Fear of supernatural agents is a significant research area for social, anthropological, and psychological studies.
Supernatural fears are linked to "prepared fears" and "cognitively prepared beliefs."
Understanding supernatural fears offers insights into human cognition, culture, and evolutionary psychology.