(This character was most recently featured in two films in 20, with Bill Skarsgård in the starring role.) This is understandable since some of the most prominent clowns in books and films are designed to be scary - such as Pennywise, the creepy clown from Stephen King’s 1986 novel It. In contrast, negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture were a much stronger contributing factor towards coulrophobia. This indicates that life experience alone is not a sufficient explanation for why people are afraid of them. Intriguingly, we found the final explanation, of having had a scary personal experience with a clown, had the lowest level of agreement.

Negative portrayals of clowns in popular culture.

Fear of clowns has been learned from family members.

Clowns’ unpredictable behavior makes us uncomfortable.

The color of clown makeup reminds us of death, infection, or blood injury and evokes disgust or avoidance.

Clown makeup hides emotional signals and creates uncertainty.

Clowns’ exaggerated facial features convey a direct sense of threat.

A similar response is sometimes seen with dolls or mannequins. An eerie or unsettling feeling due to clowns’ makeup making them look not-quite-human.This new set of questions related to eight plausible explanations for the origins of this fear, as follows: A follow-up questionnaire was given to the 53.5 percent who had reported at least some degree of clown fear. Our next step was to explore the origins of people’s fear of clowns. We also discovered coulrophobia decreases with age, which again matches up with research into other fears. The reason for this difference is not clear, but it echoes research findings on other phobias, such as the fear of snakes and spiders. We also found that women are more afraid of clowns than men. Interestingly, this percentage reporting an extreme fear of clowns is slightly higher than those reported for many other phobias, such as animals (3.8 percent), blood/injection/injuries (3.0 percent), heights (2.8 percent), still water or weather events (2.3 percent), closed spaces (2.2 percent), and flying (1.3 percent). More than half the respondents (53.5 percent) said they were scared of clowns, at least to some degree, with 5 percent saying they were “extremely afraid” of them. The Fear of Clowns Questionnaire was completed by an international sample of 987 people aged between 18 and 77. To do this, we devised a psychometric questionnaire to assess the prevalence and severity of coulrophobia. We also wanted to explore how common the fear of clowns is in adults and to look at the severity of the fear in those who reported it. So we set out to discover the reasons people are frightened by clowns and to understand the psychology behind this. While numerous possible explanations of the phobia had been put forward in academic literature, no studies had specifically investigated its origins.

Yet it is not well understood due to a lack of focused research.

Studies indicate this fear is present among both adults and children in many different cultures. Coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns, is a widely acknowledged phenomenon. Are you scared of clowns? You are not alone.

Clown mackup