What makes people afraid of clowns

An example is a very lifelike robot. This phenomenon explains why some people are creeped out by dolls, zombies and many other nearly-human things. These signals are easy to pick up from people—enough so that babies can do it. This interrupts the pattern that your brain is used to, making you uneasy.

Another reason people find clowns scary is because they seem unpredictable. This feeling comes from things like squirting flowers, fitting multiple clowns into a small car and doing tricks. Legg, Ph. Symptoms of coulrophobia. What causes a fear of clowns? How are phobias diagnosed? Treatment for coulrophobia. The bottom line.

Read this next. All About Phasmophobia, or Fear of Ghosts. Common and Unique Fears Explained. Signs and Symptoms of Anxiety Disorders. Medically reviewed by Kendra Kubala, PsyD. Understanding Emetophobia or Fear of Vomit. Medically reviewed by Vara Saripalli, Psy. Understanding Somniphobia, or Fear of Sleep. There's also the theory, favoured by the Canadian psychologist Rami Nader , that excessive clown makeup disguises someone's true identity, which can be quite alarming.

Clowns also act in ways that put people on guard, because you don't know if they're going to jump out at you, or you might get a pie in the face.

They also look like people, but with something a little off about them, which can make us feel uncomfortable. We may not want to laugh. The situation becomes, at best, awkward, and at worst — combined with the unsettling colorful familiarity — terrifying. But there's a difference between finding something a little creepy, and having a paralysing fear, which is the case with coulrophobia — so how does something like this develop?

There isn't much evidence that early childhood trauma is the cause. Phobias are always irrational, and incredibly specific. With a fear of clowns, it could have started when a clown jumped out at someone at the circus.

It could've been the shock, the loud noise, or anything else about the situation that made them feel frightened. This fear is also reinforced by the fact you might be embarrassed by it. Grimaldi made the clown the leading character of the pantomime, changing the way he looked and acted. Before him, a clown may have worn make-up, but it was usually just a bit of rouge on the cheeks to heighten the sense of them being florid, funny drunks or rustic yokels. Grimaldi, however, suited up in bizarre, colorful costumes, stark white face paint punctuated by spots of bright red on his cheeks and topped with a blue mohawk.

He was a master of physical comedy—he leapt in the air, stood on his head, fought himself in hilarious fisticuffs that had audiences rolling in the aisles—as well as of satire lampooning the absurd fashions of the day, comic impressions, and ribald songs. Enter the young Charles Dickens. Dickens had already hit upon the dissipated, drunken clown theme in his The Pickwick Papers.

Deburau was as well known on the streets of Paris as Grimaldi was in London, recognized even without his make-up. But where Grimaldi was tragic, Deburau was sinister: In , Deburau killed a boy with a blow from his walking stick after the youth shouted insults at him on the street he was ultimately acquitted of the murder. So the two biggest clowns of the early modern clowning era were troubled men underneath that face-paint.

These trick riding shows soon began attracting other performers; along with the jugglers, trapeze artists, and acrobats, came clowns. Clowns were comic relief from the thrills and chills of the daring circus acts, an anarchic presence that complimented the precision of the acrobats or horse riders. At the same time, their humor necessarily became broader—the clowns had more space to fill, so their movements and actions needed to be more obvious.