Ever Wondered Why So Many Humans Are Afraid Of Clowns?

Many unusual fears have been uncovered over the years, but one of the most intriguing of them all is Coulrophobia; the fear of clowns.

Although it’s not recognised as an actual disorder by the World Health Organisation, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a serious condition for many people. There’s psychological theory surrounding clowns and how they can provide people with a variety of emotions, from joy and happiness to horror and despair. In the current age of media, the association that film & television has with scary clowns increases the likelihood of Coulrophobia even more.

Starting from the most basic of human instincts, the majority of people who have the fear are afraid because they just don’t know for sure who exactly lies behind the costume and the make-up. This all comes from childhood as your early years are where you tend to develop all kinds of phobias, and if you combine those two inner emotions at such a young age then it’s just destined for disaster.

Dr. Ronald Doctor has stated “Kids around two or so are very reactive to a familiar body type with an unfamiliar face”. This plays into Sigmund Freud’s hypothesis called “the uncanny” where something is familiar enough to be recognisable but bizarre enough to still frighten you to your very core. To some people it can and does seem extremely irrational, but it turns out that it’s one of the most common phobias of them all.

The scenario arises for all of us at one stage or another throughout childhood where you’re at a birthday party or a gathering of all your friends, and the birthday boy’s mum has decided to go ahead and bring in a slightly suspicious looking clown. You don’t know whether to simply continue stuffing your face with cake and enjoy the comedy of the man in the costume, or run away in tears.

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss wrote about masks in a recent study and how wearing a mask or a facial disguise of any kind, such as face paint, can give the wearer the feeling of “freedom”. There’s the impression that someone with their face obscured or covered up in some way can act outside of the law or social standards and not suffer any kind of consequence, which is bound to enhance the fear factor for many.

While there isn’t any official data, it is estimated that around 12% of adults, not children, suffer from the phobia in the United States alone.

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