They’re supposed to be joyful, fun, whimisical, the highlight of children’s birthday parties but clowns are, to be completely frank, absolutely terrifying.
Every Halloween, we’d expect to see people dressed as traditional spooky characters like zombies and vampires but honestly? Nothing is scarier than an eerie clown face looking right at you.
Why, though? Why do our brains draw the line at clowns?
Why do clowns scare us so much?
Interestingly, until last year, there hadn’t been a lot of research on the fear of clowns, despite it being so pervasive. However, a team of researchers from the University of South Wales were determined to get to the bottom of our deeply entrenched fears.
To start, they created a Fear of Clowns Questionnaire, which was completed by an international sample of 987 people aged between 18 and 77.
In The Conversation, the researchers revealed: “More than half the respondents (53.5%) said they were scared of clowns at least to some degree, with 5% saying they were “extremely afraid” of them.
“Interestingly, this percentage reporting an extreme fear of clowns is slightly higher than those reported for many other phobias, such as animals (3.8%), blood/injection/injuries (3.0%), heights (2.8%), still water or weather events (2.3%), closed spaces (2.2%), and flying (1.3%).”
From there, the researchers issued a new questionnaire which sought to get to the bottom of the fear by asking if the respondents experienced any of the following:
- An eerie or unsettling feeling due to clowns’ makeup making them look not-quite-human. A similar response is sometimes seen with dolls or mannequins
- Clowns’ exaggerated facial features convey a direct sense of threat
- Clown makeup hides emotional signals and creates uncertainty
- The colour of clown makeup reminds us of death, infection or blood injury, and evokes disgust or avoidance
- Clowns’ unpredictable behaviour makes us uncomfortable
- Fear of clowns has been learned from family members
- Negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture
- A frightening experience with a clown
Interestingly, a direct frightening experience with a clown was found to be the least likely reason behind people’s fears.
The researchers revealed: “The strongest factor we identified was hidden emotional signals, suggesting that for many people, a fear of clowns stems from not being able to see their facial expressions due to their make-up.
“We cannot see their “true” faces and therefore cannot understand their emotional intent. So, for example, we don’t know whether they have a frown or a furrowed brow, which would indicate anger. Not being able to detect what a clown is thinking or what they might do next makes some of us on edge when we are around them.”
Well, yes. That is utterly horrifying, to be honest.
