Mice, insects, spiders, snakes (even the non-venomous) are just some examples. Even if they stand no chance at hurting us, they make us uncomfortable to downright fearful. Why is this?
In: Biology
Because the food chain is more of a food web. Nothing actively predates us (at least now that bears and wolves have largely been driven extinct around places of civilisation), but we can still be defeated by the smallest of things – things so small they get inside us and eat us from the inside out: Diseases.
Mice and most insects are pests. When you can see these, it means there’s a lot more you’re not seeing, and if there’s a lot more you’re not seeing then you have some kind of infestation, and if you have some kind of infestation then there’s likely something unsavoury hidden somewhere you can’t see, like mouldy food. Insects also contaminate your non-mouldy food with any diseases they’re carrying, so we learn to associate insects with the possibility of our food now being bad.
A big part of what we find unnerving about animals is their unpredictability. The less predictable an animal’s behaviour is, the less we like it. Insects and spiders move very quickly and very erratically. That’s unnerving to us because it’s uncomfortable not knowing what they’re going to do. Snakes and other more dangerous animals don’t move as erratically, but they may attack us at any time. This isn’t going to kill us, but it can hurt like hell and they may carry diseases, so we find them unnerving because that sensation of unnerving-ness causes us to be careful around them – to avoid making them want to attack us.
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