8. Pediophobia – Fear of Dolls
Not to be confused with the crime against children with a similar sounding name, pediophobia does have something of a rational base: some dolls are scary. Of course, a sufferer of this phobia finds all dolls horrific, and these feelings of repulsion can extend to robots, mannequins, and dummies. Strictly speaking, the phobia isn’t so much a fear of dolls as it is a fear of the ‘false representation of sentient beings’, and it just so happens that dolls are very common. Who knows though, in 50 years this same phobia may be better described simply as a fear of robots due to their commonness.
