Are you fearful of clowns? You aren’t alone. Coulrophobia, or the concern of clowns, is a broadly acknowledged phenomenon.
Research point out this concern is current amongst each adults and kids in lots of completely different cultures. But it’s not effectively understood as a consequence of an absence of centered analysis.
Whereas quite a few doable explanations of the phobia had been put ahead in educational literature, no research had particularly investigated its origins.
So we got down to uncover the explanations persons are frightened by clowns, and to know the psychology behind this. We additionally needed to discover how frequent the concern of clowns is in adults and to have a look at the severity of the concern in those that reported it.
To do that, we devised a psychometric questionnaire to evaluate the prevalence and severity of coulrophobia. The Worry of Clowns Questionnaire was accomplished by a world pattern of 987 individuals aged between 18 and 77.
Greater than half the respondents (53.5 p.c) mentioned they have been fearful of clowns at the very least to some extent, with 5 p.c saying they have been “extremely afraid” of them.
Curiously, this proportion reporting an excessive concern of clowns is barely larger than these reported for a lot of different phobias, comparable to animals (3.8 p.c), blood/injection/accidents (3.0 p.c), heights (2.8 p.c), nonetheless water or climate occasions (2.3 p.c), closed areas (2.2 p.c), and flying (1.3 p.c).
We additionally discovered that ladies are extra afraid of clowns than males. The explanation for this distinction just isn’t clear, but it surely echoes analysis findings on different phobias such because the concern of snakes and spiders.
We additionally found coulrophobia decreases with age, which once more matches up with analysis into different fears.
Origins of this concern
Our subsequent step was to discover the origins of individuals’s concern of clowns. A follow-up questionnaire was given to the 53.5 p.c who had reported at the very least some extent of clown concern.
This new set of questions associated to eight believable explanations for the origins of this concern, as follows:
- An eerie or unsettling feeling as a consequence of clowns’ make-up making them look not-quite-human. The same response is typically seen with dolls or mannequins.
- Clowns’ exaggerated facial options convey a direct sense of risk.
- Clown make-up hides emotional alerts and creates uncertainty.
- The color of clown make-up reminds us of loss of life, an infection or blood harm, and evokes disgust or avoidance.
- Clowns’ unpredictable behaviour makes us uncomfortable.
- Worry of clowns has been discovered from relations.
- Destructive portrayals of clowns in in style tradition.
- A daunting expertise with a clown.
Intriguingly, we discovered the ultimate clarification, of getting had a scary private expertise with a clown, had the bottom degree of settlement. This means that life expertise alone just isn’t a enough clarification for why persons are afraid of them.
In distinction, detrimental portrayals of clowns in in style tradition was a a lot stronger contributing issue in direction of coulrophobia.
That is comprehensible since a few of the most outstanding clowns in books and movies are designed to be scary – comparable to Pennywise, the creepy clown from Stephen King’s 1986 novel It. (This character most lately featured in two movies in 2017 and 2019, with Invoice Skarsgård within the starring position.)
Nonetheless, some persons are afraid of Ronald McDonald, the quick meals chain mascot, and he’s not meant to scare you. This implies there may be one thing extra elementary about the way in which clowns look that unsettles individuals.
The truth is the strongest issue we recognized was hidden emotional alerts, suggesting that for many individuals, a concern of clowns stems from not having the ability to see their facial expressions as a consequence of their make-up.
We can not see their “true” faces and subsequently can not perceive their emotional intent.
So, for instance, we do not know whether or not they have a frown or a furrowed forehead, which might point out anger. Not having the ability to detect what a clown is pondering or what they could do subsequent makes a few of us on edge after we are round them.
This analysis has supplied some new insights into why persons are afraid of clowns – but extra questions stay.
As an example, if make-up which masks feelings causes concern, do individuals who have their faces painted as animals additionally create the identical form of impact? Or is there one thing extra specific concerning the make-up of clowns that drives this concern? That is now the main target of our continued analysis.
Sophie Scorey, PhD Researcher, College of South Wales; James Greville, Lecturer in Psychology, College of South Wales; Philip Tyson, Affiliate Professor of Psychology, College of South Wales, and Shakiela Davies, Lecturer in Medical Psychology and Psychological Well being, College of South Wales
This text is republished from The Dialog underneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the unique article.
A model of this text was first printed in March 2023.
