By Lisa Wade , Ph.D.
What creeps us out ? psychologist Francis McAndrew and Sara Koehnkewanted to live .
Their hypothesis was that being pussyfoot out was a signal that somethingmightbe dangerous . thing weknoware dangerous scare us — no creepiness there — but if we ’re shy if we ’re under threat , that ’s when things get creepy-crawly .
Think of the mistily threatening skirt , not being able to see in a suddenly dark room , footsteps behind you in an set-apart place . Creepy , right ? We do n’t know for sure that we ’re in danger , but we do n’t palpate safe either , and that ’s creepy-crawly .
They surveyed 1,341 people about what they found creepy and , among their findings , they found that people ( 1 ) find it creepy-crawly when they ca n’t predict how someone will behave and ( 2 ) are less creeped out if they think they sympathize a mortal ’s intentions . Both are reproducible with the hypothesis that being unsure about a threat is behind the the feeling of creepiness .
They also theorize that citizenry would recover military personnel creepy more often than woman since man are statistically more potential than adult female to commit vehement crimes . In fact , 95 percent of their respondents agreed that a creepy-crawly mortal was most likely to be a man . This is also reproducible with their do work definition .
broadly speaking , citizenry who did n’t or maybe could n’t follow social convention were think of as creepy : people who had n’t washed their hair in a while , stand closer to other multitude than was normal , dressed oddly or in dirty dress , or laugh at irregular time .
too , people who had proscribed hobbyhorse or moving in , 1 that speak to a disregard for being normal , were seen as creepy : taxidermists and funeral directors ( both of which wield the deadened ) and adults who collect dolls or dress up like a goof ( both of which smear the lines between adulthood and puerility ) .
If people we interact with are willing to break one societal normal , or perhaps ca n’t help themselves , then who ’s to say they wo n’t break off a more serious one ? Creepy . Most of their respondents also did n’t call back that creepy people knew that they were creepy-crawly , suggest that they do n’t know they ’re breaking societal norm . Even creepier .
McAndrew and Koehnke summarise their results :
This clause originally appear on Sociological Images .
