Neophobia

As neophobia (Latin neophobia ) the fear of something new, unknown situations, new things or strangers is called. Other designations are Cainophobie or Kainolophobie. Humans and animals with the fear of the new is also known as neophob unlike neophil ( "Curiosity ").

Education Language

Neophobia (composed of Greek neo- 'new' and φόβος ' fear ' fear ' ) was first 1863 times and educational language used by cold- Schmidt for " novelty fear." As antonym applies Neomantie; derived adjectives are neophob and neophobic. Already Friedrich Erdmann Petri defined neophobia in his 1852 published " Crowded manual of foreign words in German written and spoken language," Greek for " innovation shyness ".

Natural sciences

In behavioral research and medicine, the term is currently used in two main contexts: the behavioral description of animals and the eating habits of people in childhood.

So in laboratory rats fixed excepted neophobes were compared neophilem behavior observed in different environments over the entire life time further and found that ( male ) neophobe rats, on average, lived 599 days, while the mean survival time was 701 days in neophilen rats in early adolescence; while after 840 days, all neophoben rats had died, the maximum survival time was 1026 days in neophilen rats. These differences are probably due to increased plasma levels of corticosteroids.

On the other hand, the avoidance of certain foods unknown is called neophobia and used to qualify the behavioral characteristics of a " scale for food neophobia " ( food neophobia scale, FNS ) was used. In children seen using the Child Food neophobia scale ( CFNS ) that a neophobia to food leads under real conditions to a lower intake of fruits, vegetables and protein-rich foods than in age-matched control subjects. Importantly, these studies due to the massive worldwide increase in obesity in children and adolescents and the health consequences are associated.