On the Nature of Creepiness

[LangCleg]

Came across this study on Spinster yesterday and it's fascinating!

Abstract:

Surprisingly, until now there has never been an empirical study of “creepiness.” An international sample of 1341 individuals responded to an online survey. Males were perceived as being more likely to be creepy than females, and females were more likely to associate sexual threat with creepiness. Unusual nonverbal behavior and characteristics associated with unpredictability were also predictors of creepiness, as were some occupations and hobbies. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that being “creeped out” is an evolved adaptive emotional response to ambiguity about the presence of threat that enables us to maintain vigilance during times of uncertainty.

Conclusion begins:

Everything that we found in this study is consistent with the notion that the perception of creepiness is a response to the ambiguity of threat. Males are more physically threatening to people of both sexes than are females (McAndrew, 2009), and they were more likely to be perceived as creepy by males and females alike. The link made by females between sexual threat and creepiness is also consistent with the fact that females are simply at greater risk of sexual assault and have potentially greater costs associated with it than males. We are placed on our guard by people who touch us or exhibit non-normative nonverbal behavior, or those who are drawn to occupations that reflect a fascination with death or unusual sexual behavior

scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/McAndrew-Koehnke-2016.pdf

Very interesting, thank you!

Intrigued as to what WBH is

She was lovely, Lang - even had me share her taxi, so I didn't have to worry about anyone being creepy!

Intrigued as to what WBH is

Trust me, you're better off not knowing

I saw a post here that made my blood run cold, something along the lines of “you can’t just refuse to get in a car with someone just because there are bad people in the world”

My creepometer went off the scale.

“Your boundaries offend me” = C R E E P Y.

Women can pick up on the facial traits common to people with 'dark triad' traits (even when drunk, says the study): www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886917306852

Women and girls must learn to recognise "off" behaviour or features, because we have a hell of a lot more to lose if we don't?

I had a read of this study yesterday and then by coincidence MrWhatshisknickers was watching a Joe Rogan podcast featuring neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux who was discussing the differences between our physiological responses to danger, controlled by the amygdala region of our brain, and our conscious 'feeling' of fear, controlled by the frontal cortex.

I won't bore you with the details but found it interesting in terms of the nature/nurture debate.

In the case of creepiness I suspect there is a large element of nurture, of that conscious experience of fear. As adults we can try to hide our fear of or distaste for creepy individuals but children are very quick to pick up on our anxiety and thus 'learn' which behaviours indicate danger. As we go through puberty girls get lots of experience of creepiness (this is not a good thing but we all go through it) so by the time we reach full adulthood we generally have a well tuned 'creepy weirdo-ometer'.

Creepiness is one of those things you cannot quite explain but 'instinctively' know when you see it. Except I suspect it isn't really instinct but experience that triggers our spidey-senses. For those who are drivers I would liken it to those times when you're driving along and you see another car and just know it is going to do something stupid, and lo, half a mile up the road they suddenly swing across three lanes without indicating. You can never quite put your finger on what it was that made you think they were an idiot, something about the road positioning? The way they brake to early? Drive too close? You struggle to say why but after driving for years you develop that 'instinct'. I suspect an instinct for creepiness is a similar process.

I'll stop rambling now.

Am bookmarking that podcast/video, Arnold, thanks. Looks fascinating.

Thanks for the links to the study and podcast ScrimshawTheSecond and ArnoldWhatshisknickers. Really fascinating stuff. I've started listening to the podcast now.

I tend to agree, it's a subconscious risk assessment function. But because it's subconscious it is dangerous, it can be inaccurate and target people who are not dangerous, just weird or odd.

It would be interesting to know if it's really just women more inclined to feel creeped out, or if you could find other subgroups (like vulnerable men) who had that same risk-adverse response. But I would not be surprised if it was attached particularly to women, risk adverse behaviour is pretty common in female species because procreation make them slower and more vulnerable.

If that's a challenge to feminist blank-slatism it's not the first one.