The fear of clowns or coulrophobiais a widely recognized phenomenon. Movie characters like Pennywise in ITEM or Art in Terrifier They have fostered fear of people who wear makeup to make people laugh, but the phobia, by scientific consensus, precedes them.
Like other uncommon fears, the explanation for coulrophobia is still imprecise. Adults and children from different cultures share the phobia and it is not limited to “threatening” clowns but to all those who, paradoxically, paint their faces to look happier or more expressive. Despite the prevalence of coulrophobia, psychologists have accepted that there are not many serious studies on it.
In 2023, a team of scientists from the United Kingdom created one of the first major statistical exercises on coulrophobia in people from different parts of the world. Psychologists developed a psychometric questionnaire to assess the prevalence and severity of fear of clowns. The document was applied to 987 people between 18 and 77 years old of different nationalities. The answers obtained helped clarify the most common reasons behind the phobia and were presented in the magazine International Journal of Mental Health.
Of the sample, 53.5% of the participants stated that they had a moderate fear of clowns, while 5.1% described their panic as “extreme.” Extrapolating the information, the study concludes that coulrophobia is a “common” fear in the population, but crisis situations have the same incidence as very specific or rare phobias. For example, the fear of injections statistically usually occurs in only 3% of people.
Why are we afraid of clowns?
Clowns worried more than half of those interviewed. When the team of researchers asked the reasons for this sensation, the origins of the fear became evident. The following are the answers that were most repeated in the psychometric questionnaire, replicated by one of the authors of the research in The Conversation:
- Clowns are disturbing because their makeup makes them look “not so human” or an “approximation of people.”
- The exaggerated, painted facial features convey a direct sense of threat.
- The clown’s makeup hides emotional signals and creates uncertainty among his interlocutors.
- The paint, being mostly white and red, reminds us of death, infection or injury, therefore triggering an avoidance response.
- Clowns are unpredictable and that makes them uncomfortable.
- Other family members suffer from some degree of coulrophobia, so it is a learned fear.
- There are negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture.
- There was some traumatic experience with a clown.
There were surprises in the reasons behind the fear of clowns. Psychologists expected that bad personal experiences were the main cause. Instead, they found that the barrier with the face that covers the intentions of people who paint themselves as clowns is one of the most common responses.
It cannot be ignored that the main reason for coulrophobia identified by the questionnaire is a phenomenon that now appears when seeing robots that try to emulate human naturalness. In robotics it is known as “the uncanny valley”, a phenomenon that causes discomfort to people when they see anthropomorphic replicas that simulate the appearance of a person.
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