JayLynn

Madison High School harbors around 382 students. I sent each one of these students a form with the goal of identifying the most common phobia at our high school. I provided the students with ten phobia options from verywellmind.com. This included:

  • Arachnophobia: an intense fear of spiders and other arachnids

  • Ophidiophobia: an intense fear of snakes

  • Acrophobia: an intense fear of heights

  • Aerophobia: an intense fear of flying

  • Cynophobia: an intense fear of dogs

  • Astraphobia: an intense fear of thunder and lightning

  • Trypanophobia: an intense fear of injections

  • Social phobia: an intense fear of social interactions

  • Agoraphobia: an intense fear of places that are difficult to escape, sometimes involving fear of crowded or open spaces

  • Mysophobia: an intense fear of germs, dirt, and other contaminants

I also listed "none of the above" as an option. Here are the responses after collecting answers from 87 students. 24 students choose “none of the above”. This isn't surprising since only 19.3% of adolescents have a specific phobia. In second place was arachnophobia with 14 selections Next is trypanophobia, which is the fear of injections, with 12 students. This can include shots or IVs. Closely following is the intense fear of heights, which is the phobia of 11 students at Madison High School. At 9 respondents is agoraphobia. Next is the fear of snakes, also known as ophidiophobia, which 7 students selected. 4 people claim they have social phobia which is an intense fear of social interactions. Just under this is mysophobia, with 3 responses. People with this phobia are most commonly known as germaphobes. Cynophobia, astraphobia, and aerophobia each have 1 respondent. To conclude, the most common phobia at Madison School is the fear of spiders. Apart from the definitive answer, I can confidently conclude that this survey is diverse.

Image source: https://www.istockphoto.com/illustrations/fear

Information: https://www.verywellmind.com/most-common-phobias-4136563

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/specific-phobia