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(CNN) - For a long time, Hollywood has exploited our profound ambivalence about clowns, and the list of films in the coming months is no different.
In "It Chapter Two," Stephen King's evil clown, Pennywise, has his second appearance on the screen in two years, while Batman's insane archrival, The Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix, will appear as the antihero in history about its origin, "Joker".
How did a classic character of children's birthday parties become the embodiment of pure evil?
Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker.
In fact, a study in 2008 in England revealed that very few children like clowns. He also concluded that the common practice of decorating children's rooms in hospitals with images of clowns can create the exact opposite of a cozy atmosphere. No wonder so many people hate Ronald McDonald.
But as a psychologist, I am not only interested in pointing out that clowns give us chills; I'm also interested in knowing why we found them so disturbing. In 2016, I published a study entitled "On the Nature of Creepiness", with one of my students, Sara Koehnke, in the New Ideas in Psychology. While the study does not specifically analyze the creepy clowns, much of what we discover can help explain this intriguing phenomenon.
The march of the clowns
Clown-like characters have existed for thousands of years. Historically, jesters and clowns have been a vehicle for satire and to make fun of powerful people. They provided a relief valve for relief and were granted a unique freedom of expression, provided that their value as artists exceeded the discomfort they caused to superiors.
Jesters and other ridiculous characters date back at least to ancient Egypt, and the English word "clown" (clown) first appeared in the 16th century, when Shakespeare used the term to describe silly characters in several of his works. The circus clown who is now familiar to us, with his face painted, wig and excessively large clothes, emerged in the 19th century and has changed very little in the last 150 years.
Nor is the evil clown trope something new. In 2016, writer Benjamin Radford published "Bad Clowns", in which he traces the historical evolution of clowns in menacing and unpredictable creatures.
The spooky clown's personality really gained importance after serial killer John Wayne Gacy was captured. In the 1970s, Gacy appeared at children's birthday parties like "Pogo the Clown" and also regularly painted pictures of clowns. When authorities discovered that he had killed at least 33 people, burying most of them under his home in the suburbs of Chicago, the connection between clowns and dangerous psychopathic behavior was permeated forever in the collective unconscious of Americans .
Then, for several months in 2016, spooky clowns terrorized the United States.
The reports came from at least 10 different states. In Florida, devilish clowns were seen lurking on the side of the road. In South Carolina, clowns reportedly tried to attract women and children to the forest.
It is not clear which of these incidents were stories of antics and what were really kidnapping attempts. However, the perpetrators seemed to take advantage of the primary fear that so many children, and more than a few adults, experience in the presence of clowns.
The nature of the creepy
Psychology can help explain why clowns, supposed providers of jokes and jokes, often end up giving us chills.
My research was the first empirical study of the creepy, and I had a feeling that feeling scared might have something to do with ambiguity, about not really being sure how to react to a person or situation.
We recruit 1,341 volunteers aged 18 to 77 to complete an online survey. In the first section of the survey, our participants rated the probability that a hypothetical “creepy person” exhibited 44 different behaviors, such as unusual patterns of eye contact or physical characteristics as visible tattoos. In the second section of the survey, participants rated the creepy of 21 different occupations, and in the third section, they simply listed two hobbies that they thought were creepy. In the final section, participants explained how much they agreed with 15 statements about the nature of the spooky people.
The results indicated that the people we perceive as creepy are much more likely to be men than women, that unpredictability is an important component of the creepy and that unusual patterns of eye contact and other nonverbal behaviors greatly activate our detectors. the creepy
Unusual or strange physical characteristics, such as bulging eyes, a peculiar smile or excessively long fingers make us perceive somebody as creepy. But the presence of strange physical traits can amplify any other tendency to the creepy thing that the person can exhibit, such as constantly directing conversations towards peculiar sexual issues or not understanding the politics of taking reptiles to the office.
When we asked people to rate the spooky of different occupations, those who reached the top of the list were, the clowns guessed.
The results were consistent with my theory that "getting scared" is a response to the ambiguity of the threat and that it is only when we face uncertainty about the threat that gives us the chills.
For example, it would be considered rude and strange to run away in the middle of a conversation with someone who is emitting a creepy vibe, but who is really harmless; at the same time, it could be dangerous to ignore one's intuition and interact with that individual if, in fact, it is a threat. Ambivalence leaves you frozen in place, wallowing in discomfort.
This reaction could be adaptive, a sensation that has evolved in humans, so being "scared" would be a way to stay vigilant during a situation that could be dangerous.
Why clowns activate our alarms
In light of the results of our study, it is not surprising that we find them creepy.
Rami Nader is a Canadian psychologist who studies coulrophobia, the irrational fear of clowns. Nader believes that the clown phobia feeds on the fact that they wear makeup and costumes that hide their true identities and feelings.
This is perfectly consistent with my hypothesis that it is the inherent ambiguity that surrounds clowns that makes them creepy. They seem happy, but are they really? And they are naughty, which constantly puts people on guard. People who interact with a clown during one of their routines never know if they are about to receive a slap in the face or if they will be victims of some other humiliating joke. The highly unusual physical characteristics of the clown (the wig, the red nose, the makeup, the strange clothes) only increase the uncertainty of what the clown could do next.
Certainly there are other types of people that scare us: taxidermists and funeral homes have a good part in the spooky spectrum. But they have a lot of work to do if they aspire to the level of chills that we automatically attribute to clowns.
In other words, they have great shoes to fill.
Author Frank T. McAndrew is a professor of psychology at Cornelia H. Dudley at Knox College in Illinois. This is an updated version of his article that was originally published on September 28, 2016.
Copyright 2019 The Conversation. Some rights reserved.
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