Question about the fright feats

If the contestants aren't scared of something do they have to act scared anyway?

Asking as just finished the wild West ep and Cynthia said she's not scared of snakes specifically, she likes snakes but she doesn't know these snakes so that's what makes it scary.

I'm a snake owner and I know what she means, I'm obviously not scared of them even though I do know what their bites can feel like and I definitely do jump when feeding mine if they miss, which they often do because ball pythons are clumsy.

But I know what she means about it not being snakes she knows, as in you know the temperment of your own reptiles and how much they've been handled, how stressy they are or how defensive they get. It looks like all the snakes they've used are incredibly tame and chill for the most part, my only worry would be about all of them being so close together, especially the bigger burm with the smaller ball pythons, cause snakes are known to eat one another, though it seems like theyre used to this sort of interaction and it likely didnt last long enough for something like that to happen.

Still, it seems like she potentially wasn't actually scared of the snakes, so are the performers told to ham it up if they're not actually scared? Cause to me, the ultimate winner of a fright feat would be the one who came out totally unbothered by the challenge, but I also can see how you'd award points for someone facing something they were genuinely really scared of and seeing it through to the end. Even though the exterminations rarely seem to have anything to do with the fright feats tbh or I think Anaphylactic would have stayed in for that ridiculously funny lower back tattoo.