Why we are afraid of clowns: the truth according to science

There are some questions we ask ourselves which in and of themselves are a true mystery. And one of them has to do with a seemingly simple question: Why can the image of a clown be terrifying? Beyond Item, Stephen King’s horror novel, a scientific study set out to find out and drew conclusions.

THE coulrophobia, or the fear of clownsis a recognized phenomenon with fieldwork indicating that it is present among in both adults and children in many different cultures, explain in The conversation,

A new study reveals the truth about the fear of clowns

A new study by University of South Wales School of Psychology and Therapeutic Studies, United Kingdomevaluated the psychology behind clown scare through a psychometric questionnaire.

To complete the Questionnaire on fear of clowns with an international sample appealed 987 people between 18 and 77 years oldof which 80% women and 20% men, expand.

The aim was to explore individual reactions to clowns and the relationship between coulrophobia and demographic factors such as age and gender.

For example, questions have appeared relating to the appearance and facial features of clowns, their behavior, representation in popular culture, and whether the person has had a negative experience with a clown, for example.

The results proved it more than half of the respondents (53.5%) said they were afraid of clowns at least to some extent, with 5% noting they had an “extreme panic” of them, it spreads gizmode on scientific study.

In comparison, the rate of extreme fear of clowns is higher than that reported for many other phobias, such as animals (3.8%), blood/shots/wounds (3%), height (2.8%), fmeteorological phenomena (23%), closed spaces (2.2%) and fly (1.3%).

Conclusions of scientists

As for demographic factors, they found out women were more afraid of clowns than menwhich matches existing research on other phobias.

Also, like other research related to phobia, it has been found that coulrophobia decreases with age.

One thing worth noting is this having a negative experience with a classified clown lower as a contributing factor to fear.

So, for example, the negative portrayal of clowns in popular culture has been a much stronger and more influential contributing factor, they point out.

As a counterpart, the most important place the study found that the strongest factor identified was hidden emotional cues.

He clown makeup hides their true facial expressions, which makes it difficult to interpret intent. The findings suggest that fear of clowns is caused by not knowing if a clown is angry or notor what you are thinking or could do next.

Based on this conclusion, a question arises to be revealed: If the clown’s emotion-concealing makeup causes fear, does someone with their face painted as an animal or something else create the same effect?

Scientists already have more work to do to advance their studies of coulrophobia and other phobias.