What we fear is a mirror

Along with trick-or-treating and attending parties, some people celebrate Halloween by paying to get scared: they walk through the spooky scenes of a haunted house while actors jump from the shadows, scream, and taunt them.

Why do we like to get a little scared? The James-Lange theory of emotion would suggest that we experience our bodies' fear response, racing hearts and sweaty palms, but then mislabel that arousal as "fun" or "excitement." As well, haunted houses keep us in the present moment so we cannot worry about anything else at the same time. People who were stressed before going into a haunted house often report the highest amount of relaxation from the experience.

But do we all get scared by the same things? Muroff, Spencer, Ross, Williams, Neighbors, and Jackson (2014) wondered if White and African American men and women have different ideas of what causes fear. They used a cognitive interview technique by asking a convenience sample of almost 200 participants (ages 18-85) a single question, "What makes and object or a situation fearful?" (p. 156).

From their answers the researchers distilled five categories of what makes something scary:

External Locus of Control: feeling out of control; not knowing what is about to happen.

Harm/Danger: risk that something would hurt or threaten your health/life.

Phobias: an irrational, intense fear of something that provokes immediate anxiety and/or panic.

Past Experience: having had or knowing about someone else's past experience with something that was fear-inducing.

Self-Perception: your belief that you will find something scary or not be able to handle something.

Muroff et al. then reexamined the participants' responses to see how often all of the participants and participants from specific groups included these categories in their original explanations about what makes things scary. From these qualitative data, they found that (p. 157):

*The most common category for all participants was External Locus of Control: it was mentioned in 35% of all explanations. This was followed by Harm/Danger (29%) and Phobias (18%).

*White women were 1.5 times more likely than African-American women to include External Locus of Control as part of their answers.

*External Locus of Control appeared most in the explanations given by White women and the least in explanations given by White men. 

*Older participants' responses were more likely to include External Locus of Control.

*White men were 3.5 times more likely than African-American men to include Past Experience in their responses.

*Men were more likely than women to include references of Self-Perception.

*Phobia was most common in the answers given by participants who had not completed high school.

This would suggest that these same individuals would react differently to various aspects of a haunted house. The majority, but especially White female and older participants, would be scared by unpredictable situations: dark passageways; rooms filled with disorienting lighting and mirrors; going around blind corners; not being able to find the way out of a room.

White male participants would be scared of things that remind them of bad situations that they, or people they know, have experienced. For example, an actor throwing a fake punch toward them, or a torture scene that includes an actor being kicked in the genitals or having a thumb hit by a hammer.

Males, in general, would also be afraid if they were led to believe that they could not handle a situation. This could be induced by playing recorded messages like, "You are helpless," "Others have come here but nobody leaves alive," or, "You can fight but you are too weak to escape," as they walk through the haunted house.

Finally, participants who had not completed high school might be particularly afraid if the horrific scenes included common phobia triggers. For example, spiders, needles, blood, tight spaces, or high heights.

Muroff et al. were not interested in how to build the scariest haunted house. Instead they were curious if people from different groups may have different interpretations of an assessment question that is commonly used to diagnosis phobias. Their results suggest that age, education level, sex, and race can influence how people conceptualize fear, and this may affect the accuracy of that phobia assessment.

The authors emphasized that the results likely reflect truly scary aspects of American culture. For example, women tend to have less financial power related to men; money allows you to better control your experiences. I would also add that women are more often cautioned to control their environments to prevent dangerous situations (e.g.; never walk alone; don't leave your drink unattended; walk with purpose and stay in well-lit areas). This may be particularly true for White women as the media more often portrays them as victims of violence - even though it is African American women who actually experience more violence. Perhaps this is why White women were more likely to endorse External Locus of Control as something that induces fear.

More clearly, Muroff et al. wrote, "Research on coping mechanisms for discriminated and stigmatized groups suggests that African American men and women may depend on various mechanisms for coping such as external locus of control and social learning" (p. 158). In this case external locus of control means that discrimination is explained as being random or a product of the situation, and thereby not caused by the person experiencing this unfair treatment. The authors explained that this beneficial coping mechanism would be less likely to be part of African Americans' explanations of fear.

Additionally they wrote, "Our findings also suggest that White respondents in this sample mention past experiences in their conceptualizations of fear more frequently than their African American counterparts. African Americans' experiences may be influenced more by unpredictable events including acts of racism and discrimination." Because of this, "African Americans may focus on the present and future in order to cope with adverse life experiences" (p. 158). When your past is full of fear it might not help you distinguish if a new situation is scary or not.

We can all exit a haunted house, but we can rarely step outside of our own experience of biological sex, race, and culture. The first step is to realize that we are all different: the same environment may be fun for some and scary for others.

Further Reading:

The Muroff et al. (2014) article can be accessed through your local college library.

Listen to National Public Radio's "Hidden Brain" podcast on the Science of Fear.

Read about Neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett who creates a yearly haunted house in her basement based on the neuroscience of fear. The proceeds of the event are donated to charity.

BONUS:

Watch when talk show host Ellen Degeneris sends her executive producer and "Modern Family" star, Eric Stonestreet, through a haunted house. These men are both White: does their behavior match the results of Muroff et al.?

Andy Goes to a Haunted House with Eric Stonestreet, Part 2 | EllenTV.com

So gifted...

In the 1971 movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," Gene Wilder plays a much more menacing version of Willy Wonka than you may be familiar with from the 2005 remake. Spoiled children are his biggest pet peeve and he watches them die candy-related deaths with nonchalance (see the demise of Augustus Gloop here) much to the horror of their parents.  So it is no surprise that Wilder's Wonka stars in this week's meme:

Why is this funny?

One possibility is that people believe that giftedness should imply a high level of all skills, including social and behavioral skills (the "harmony hypothesis").  So if a child is labeled as "Gifted" in school, it would be very funny to find that child eating sand at the playground.  This harmony hypothesis is not supported by research.  Intellectual giftedness usually means that the child is a quick learner, has an IQ that is unusually high, and is often able to complete schoolwork at a level that is more advanced their grade level.  Thus, a child who is gifted but has low social skills can exist.  In addition, children who are "Twice Exceptional" are examples of how intellectual giftedness can coexist with learning disabilities and behavior issues that require intervention.

Another possibility is that people believe that gifted children are weirdos who all have emotional and behavioral problems (the "disharmony hypothesis").  For example, in a 2013 study of German school teachers, their implicit stereotypes about gifted students included that they are, "less emotionally stable...less agreeable" (p. 40).  The authors, Baudson and Preckel, point out this stereotype does not match reality: gifted children do not have higher rates of emotional or behavioral problems than average children.

At the same time, reviews of Giftedness research remind us that these children are often very sensitive, which may be misperceived as being over-emotional.  They also may struggle with perfectionism - for example, getting very upset if they receive an A- instead of an A.  Gifted children, like all children, become friends with kids who are similar to them, so these reviews also suggest that gifted children will be most socially successful with other gifted kids.  So maybe these traits have been misunderstood to mean that Gifted children have emotional and behavioral problems.

The final possibility is that this meme is funny because it is making fun of parents who brag that their children are Gifted and exceptional without any evidence to support that claim.  This is my favorite interpretation because the humor is not based on a misperception of gifted kids.

Brummelman, Thomaes, Neleman, Orobio de Castro, and Bushman (2015) detail the creation of their Parental Overvaluation Scale (the POS, which is ironic in American slang).  Overvaluing means viewing your child as somehow more deserving of good things and of being a better person than the average child.  In fact, the paper's title includes the phrase, "My child is God's gift to Humanity" to demonstrate how extreme this perception can be.  The authors found that this warped view was often, but not always, reported by narcissistic parents.  For all parents, overvaluing was demonstrated by irrationally high evaluations of their children's knowledge, compulsive praising of their children's efforts, and over-estimation of their children's intelligence.

For example, Brummelman et al. had parents rate how likely it was that their children were familiar with certain important, historical concepts.  Some of these were real, like "Vietnam War," but others were made up, like "Storming of Austria" (p. 679). The parents who overvalue their children were not only more likely to believe that their kids would be familiar with the real examples, they were also more likely to believe that their children would be familiar with the fictional examples!

The authors also recorded parents' behaviors as they helped their children solve mathematics problems:  overvaluing parents praised their children 62% more often.  This praise was not related to how accurately the problems were solved, so it was not reflecting reality!

Most relevant to our meme, Brummelman et al. asked parents to evaluate their children's intellect, including how much they agree with this statement: "I see my child as gifted" (p. 672).  Even though their children's IQ scores were not higher than other children's, the overvaluing parents were more likely to agree that their children are gifted!

Parents who overvalue their children may be doing more harm than simply being annoying to Willy Wonka:  these behaviors may turn entitled children into adult narcissists who believe that they are superior humans.  Bushman, one of the creators of the POS, has recently gotten wide media attention in the United States for his suggestion that parents lay off of so much praise to avoid creating little narcissists.  Over-simplified headlines reading, "Don't praise your child!  Don't tell your child that he is special!" seemed to spring up overnight!

This parent-blaming reminds me of a song from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory":

However, Bushman's claims are guesses in the longterm - we don't know if overvalued children actually turn into narcissistic adults - and the average parent is unlikely to be an overvaluing parent.  You also know that irrationally excessive praise is only one part of overvaluing behaviors.  So if your praise is justified and if you tell your child that he or she is special because EVERY human is unique and special, it is unlikely to cause a problem.

Either way - Gifted or not - if your children are eating sand like Augustus Gloop eats chocolate, you should talk to their pediatrician about pica!  This can be a sign of nutritional deficiencies.


 Further Reading:

The Brummelman et al. (2015) article in JPSP is available through your college library, but a version of the authors' related study that spawned Bushman's media frenzy is available online.  The published version in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States can also be accessed through your college library.

Hoagies Gifted Education Page and the National Associate for Gifted Children are good sources for parents and teachers who want to learn more about intellectual giftedness.

Have to deal with overvaluing parents?  Help from WebMd: Talking to parents who brag about their kids.

This man claims that his biggest phobia is a fear of Willy Wonka!