Pediophobia Fear of Dolls

Pediophobia is the irrational fear of dolls. Not just scary dolls – ALL dolls.

Strictly speaking, the fear is a horror of a “false representation of sentient beings” so it also usually includes robots and mannequins, which can make it decidedly difficult to go shopping.

This phobia should not be confused with pedophobia or pediaphobia which is the fear of children.

Sigmund Freud believed the disorder may spring from a fear of the doll coming to life and roboticist Masahiro Mori expanded on that theory by stating that the more human-like something becomes, the more repellent its non-human aspects appear.

My apologies to those who suffer from pediophobia for the picture above.

Mageirocophobia Fear of Cooking

The bizarre fear of cooking is called mageirocophobia which comes from the Greek word mageirokos which means a person skilled in cooking.

This disorder can be debilitating and potentially lead to unhealthy eating if one lives alone.

Sufferers of mageirokos can feel extremely intimidated by people with skills in cooking, and this intimidation and feeling of inadequacy is probably the root cause of the disorder for many.

The Possibly Cannibalistic Susquehannocks

The Susquehannocks were a Native American tribe who were given a very bad reputation by European settlers.

Depicted as brutal cannibals, the Susequehannocks were accused of the massacre of their neighbors, the Shenks Ferry people.

April Beisaw, an anthropologist at Vassar College, thought the tribe might have had an unfair reputation for the last few hundred years, so she decided to check if any massacre actually happened.

With the help of two undergraduates, she set out to examine as much evidence as was available.

After studying over 2,000 artifacts from the area and records at several museums, she discovered no evidence that violence of any kind occurred between the two tribes.

The legend probably served as useful ammunition for settlers who actually did slaughter members of the Susquehannock tribe.

She hopes her work will help “rewrite history” for the natives.

Deipnophobia Fear of Dinner Conversation

Now admittedly some dinner conversations can be very awkward, but some people are so terrified of the idea of speaking to another person over dinner that they avoid dining out situations.

In times gone by there were strict rules of etiquette that helped a person to deal with these situations – but they are (sadly) mostly forgotten.

In today’s society in which rules and formality are out the window, it is possible that the more controlled nature of a dinner party may lie partly behind this phobia.