Exactly, Even I have seen developers afraid of using objects.
Most of the PHP developers never work extensively with pure object oriented languages and hence they never realize the true power of objects.
Web-developers using PHP hardly deal with anything that can force them to use object oriented approach. ( PHP - work can be done without using objects, JavaScript - Its up-to you, your wish again ) .
Even when people are using Java on server they try to stay away from Objects in JS :P
However, i love using Object Oriented Style no matter i'm coding in PHP, JS or Java.