Reptiles are very sane animals. Unlike humans, they don't do things that they don't like to do. They do what they want to do. If a snake bites you, it's because, at that moment, it wanted to, and liked it, if only a little bit.
That's how reward centers in the brain work--these things drive action from instinct. I don't think it's the least bit of a stretch to assume that animals like to behave the way they do. Any animal with emotion is capable of that--that's a large part of what emotions are FOR. And snakes do have emotions, albeit primitive ones.
People tend to go too far in avoiding 'anthropomorphism'. They forget that humans are animals, and that other species DO share mental traits with us. Throwing out all hope of understanding an animal's motivations is just as bad as assuming it thinks exactly the way you do.
These animals aren't devoid of emotion, or of motivation. We know that pythons like to have small, tight hiding places because they seek them out, and their stress level reduces when they have them. This is obvious, it's not anthropomorphic.
It takes a social animal to do something it doesn't want to do, in order to achieve some long-term goal.
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