Why are some phobias more common than others?

Question

Just curious because I was looking through a list of phobias and some of them, I never though possible. So why is it that a fear of spiders is pretty common while I've never met a person scared of the figure 8? Is it something psychological?

Answer 1

Phobias develop when you transfer fear of something real that you can't cope with (like your father's yelling or a serious disease) into fear of something completely unrelated.  They're like a place-marker or bookmark for the real fear.

The pickle phobia may have arisen from a serious case of food poisoning.  Fear of thunder may really be the lack of control you have over an alcoholic and angry spouse.  The transference is different for each person, and the list of transferred fears is very long.

Since the process is subconscious, it may be nearly impossible to follow a phobia back to its source without psychiatric help.  To answer your question, certain things like spiders have gotten a bad rap for, say, being in a "dirty" house or having a venomous bite.    Many people, as youngsters, were shamed for getting dirty or "mouthing off" to a parent.  Hence, they may develop a fear of something associated with being dirty or attacking with words.

Answer 2

a lot of phobias on that list are very very very very seldomly (if at all) diagnosed as a medical/pyschological condition... most of the phobias on the lists on the web are just taken from their Greek or Latin root words and combine them with "-phobia" as a suffix, which is from Greek "phobos" for fear.

Answer 3

Phobias are derived from various social mediums such as T.V. and things that your parents told you.  These seeds of fear are triggered when you have experiences that compliment them.  Its all in the mind of the Phobic, who has been cultured by a society to be afraid various things.  Very few people in South America are afraid of bats.  It's a cultural thang!  

Answer 4

Because some of the fears are innate.  The ones that are innate are more likely to be common because it would have evolutionarily helped us get away from predators, etc.  The ones like the the "8" phobia and the pickle phobia just happen by chance, but they also might be innate.  However, they don't serve such a bigger purpose and that is why they are not as common.