In current times we fear the spread of contagious diseases and viruses above all.

The invisible spread, the unseen jump from person to person is terrifying.

But what about the transmission of terror itself?

It's been long understood that body language, including facial expressions,

communicate fear, and can even create an automatic response to it.

Fear is an extremely important evolutionary mechanism, and humans, along with millions of other

species, have developed it for a reason to keep us safe.

But fear can spiral out of control fast.

People have developed fears of almost everything under the sun.

What is terrifying to one person may be a complete non-issue to another.

Despite fears of all kinds, the horror genre is alive and well. In particular the natural horror genre

because there is something about man-eating animals that really gets us going.

Movies like Tremors, the birds, Koojo, Anaconda, Arachnophobia, Beast,

Rogue, and even Cocaine Bear have all cemented their place in our psyches. But nothing tops the films featuring the biggest fish in the sea.

Sharks.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of movies that fuel our fear of sharks. There has been such an increase in Galaf that

the irrational fear of sharks.

that a rational fear of sharks that psychologists are actually beginning to study why.

So far, it appears that our fear of sharks is a learned behavior and

socially reinforced and one doesn't have to look much farther than films like

Jaws to see why. Your chances of winning the powerball are better than being bitten by a

shark, but that fact doesn't matter much to those who have witnessed or survived a shark encounter, because blood in the water is an image that cannot be unseen.

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