It seems like these days the world is full of things to be afraid of. If you ask most people what they\u2019re afraid of, you get responses like: global warming, needles, public speaking, nuclear war, tornadoes, or maybe losing a loved one or a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if you go to the movies, or \u201cstream\u201d the movies\/TV shows, horror movies or TV programs aren\u2019t usually about those fears \u2014 they\u2019re usually about dolls or sharks, or maybe clowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A phobia is an intense fear of a certain object or scenario that impacts behavior and sometimes daily life. Phobias are often deep-rooted psychological responses tied to some traumatic event in the person\u2019s past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I read a magazine article a few days ago that discussed a survey conducted by Chapman University. According to the survey, 7.8 percent of Americans suffer from coulrophobia<\/em> \u2014 a fear of clowns. And \u2014 it can be a debilitating fear. I might note that coulrophobia isn\u2019t an officially recognized phobia. I guess if you think about it, the fear of clowns must be real and fairly widespread\u2026. it\u2019s even inspired it\u2019s own \u201cword\u201d to describe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our son, Dave, while not afraid of clowns, isn\u2019t particularly fond of them either. I remember the first time we took him to the circus, he was anxiously looking around and asking where the clowns were\u2026 even before we got inside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In theory, clowns are figures of fun, intended to produce amusement and laughter with their hijinks \u2014 not screams of horror. When you think of clowns, you envision big smiley faces, party tricks, slapstick, bright colors, funny costumes, etc. None of these things are typically associated with intense fear. While doing my usual extensive research on clowns, I ran across a term I hadn\u2019t heard before \u2014 \u201cuncanny valley.\u201d First of all we have to remember that clowns are people. People in elaborate\/funny costumes, but people nonetheless. So, they have human bodies and faces, like everyone else. But that is where the problem(s) come in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cuncanny valley\u201d effect is a phenomenon where things that look human but \u201caren\u2019t quite there\u201d are incredibly unsettling. It appears to be a fundamental reflex. If you put a pair of google eyes on a sock, you\u2019ve got yourself a lovable puppet that nobody has any issue with \u2014 but a highly realistic android with an almost-but not-quite-identical face to that of a real human is often very frightening. Ventriloquist dummies also have a similar \u201cscary\u201d reputation like clowns, likely for this very reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One theory is that they make us think of death and corpses (a dead face looks like a normal one but \u201cbehaves\u201d differently.) Anyhow, for whatever reason, human faces that deviate from the norm are upsetting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s not just the face \u2014 humans are very sensitive to body shape, and movement. We (subconsciously) glean an incredible amount of information just from the way someone walks. We are sensitive to all aspects of a person\u2019s walk such as posture, stance and gait. Clowns throw all this out of whack with their exaggerated tumbling and walking. All these things make clowns upsetting, just by their existence, for many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The unpredictability of clowns may be another reason for \u201cclown phobia.\u201d If you go to a circus, most things are predictable\u2026 jugglers juggle, acrobats perform impressive stunts, wild animal tamers tame wild animals, and clowns clown around. But clowns don\u2019t always clown around as expected \u2014 they do things that defy normal behavior. That unpredictability is something that causes a knee-jerk distrust and apprehension in many humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen King once said that nobody likes a clown at midnight \u2014 for a lot of people, that probably applies to any time of day. It seems like these days the world is full of things to be afraid of. If you ask most people what they\u2019re afraid of, you get responses like: global warming, needles, public speaking, nuclear war, tornadoes, or maybe losing a … Continue reading
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