Trypophobia is the condition in which individuals report a range of negative emotions when viewing clusters of small holes. Since the phenomenon was first described in the peer-reviewed literature a decade ago, 47 papers have appeared together with hundreds of news articles. There has also been much discussion on various internet forums, including medical and health-related websites. In the present article, we examine the degree to which the phenomenon is caused by a form of social learning, specifically, its ubiquitous social media presence. We also examined its prevalence amongst the broad population. In Experiment 1 (n=2558) we assessed whether younger people and females, (i.e., greater social media users), are more sensitive to trypophobic stimuli, as predicted by the social media hypothesis. In Experiment 2 (n=283) we examined whether sensitivity to trypophobic stimuli and rates of trypophobia is greater in people who are aware of the condition’s existence, as opposed to those who have never heard of the phenomenon. In line with the social media theory, results showed that younger people and females are indeed more susceptible to trypophobia. However, 24% of trypophobic individuals have never heard of the condition. Overall, these data suggest that both social learning and non-social learning contributes to trypophobia. We also find that prevalence of trypophobia is approximately 10%.

中文翻译：

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EXPRESS：密集恐惧症的社会学习账户

密集恐惧症是指人们在看到成群的小孔时会表现出一系列负面情绪的情况。自从十年前同行评审文献首次描述这一现象以来，已有 47 篇论文和数百篇新闻文章出现。各种互联网论坛上也有很多讨论，包括医疗和健康相关网站。在本文中，我们研究了这种现象在多大程度上是由某种社会学习形式引起的，特别是其无处不在的社交媒体存在。我们还检查了其在广大人群中的患病率。在实验 1（n=2558）中，我们评估了年轻人和女性（即更多的社交媒体用户）是否对密集恐惧症刺激更敏感，正如社交媒体假设所预测的那样。在实验 2 (n=283) 中，我们检查了知道密集恐惧症存在的人是否比从未听说过这种现象的人对密集恐惧症刺激的敏感性和密集恐惧症的发生率更高。与社交媒体理论一致，结果表明年轻人和女性确实更容易患密集恐惧症。然而，24% 的密集恐惧症患者从未听说过这种情况。总的来说，这些数据表明社交学习和非社交学习都会导致密集恐惧症。我们还发现密集恐惧症的患病率约为 10%。