SLOVAKIAN AND TURKISH STUDENTSʹ FEAR, DISGUST AND PERCEIVED DANGER OF INVERTEBRATES

Human perceives invertebrates less positively than vertebrates because they are small and behaviourally and morphologically unfamiliar. This cross-cultural research focused on Slovakian (n=150) and Turkish (n=164) studentsʹ fear, disgust and perceived danger regarding 25 invertebrates [including 5 disease relevant adult insects, 5 ectoparasites, 5 endoparasites, 5 disease irrelevant adult insects and 5 insect larvae/earthworm]. A subsample of Slovakian children was asked for taxonomic identification of these animals. It was found that Turkish students rated higher in all three dimensions fear, disgust and dangerousness, compared with Slovakian students. Gender difference favouring higher score of females were found only among Slovakian students and these differences were observed for potentially harmful animals. This implies that females were able to distinguish between more and less dangerous animals. It was neither detected any effects of owning animals on studentsʹ ratings, nor found any correlation between identification skills and rating scores.