--- title: What Trick or Treating Teaches Us About Human Nature description: Psychology lessons from Yale study on trick or treaters using Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Halloween studies by Dan Ariely, Ed Diener canonical: https://time.com/4077564/trick-or-treating-psychology-studies-michelle-obama-hillary-clinton/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-28T18:22:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:26.999Z article:section: Health og:title: What Trick or Treating Teaches Us About Human Nature og:description: One is measuring the success of Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' campaign og:url: https://time.com/4077564/trick-or-treating-psychology-studies-michelle-obama-hillary-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Trick or Treating Teaches Us About Human Nature twitter:description: One is measuring the success of Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' campaign twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # What Trick-or-Treating Teaches Us About Human Nature > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=094b0c4b-f5fb-405b-abcd-6823e8819663&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How Haunted Houses Became a Halloween Tradition [Watch (HLS stream): How Haunted Houses Became a Halloween Tradition](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Pr5QL481.m3u8) (2:18)  _Published 2015-10-29. Are you brave enough?_  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Oct 28, 2015 6:22 PM UTC  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Oct 28, 2015 6:22 PM UTC This Halloween, children who trick or treat at a Yale economist’s house in New Haven, Connecticut, will be asked some questions back before they get their loot. First, they will be randomly assigned to go to a section of Dean Karlan’s front porch — either the section with a photo of First Lady Michelle Obama, the section with a photo of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, or the section with no photo (that’s the control). Half the kids in the Clinton and Obama areas will be asked if they know who the women are. The kids will also be asked whether they’d prefer fruit or candy. The professor wants to see if the visual cue of Michelle Obama will lead more children to choose fruit over candy. That’s what happened when he did the experiment in 2012, and if it happens again, that may suggest the First Lady’s health campaigns have really been ingrained in kids’ heads. Karlan isn’t the first social scientist to design an experiment around trick-or-treaters. In fact, there were a few studies published in the _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ in the ’70s and ’80s, at a time when social psychologists were eager to get out of the lab and examine behavior of the broader public, says retired psychology professor Arthur Beaman. Another bonus: it was different from lab studies done with college students, where said students always know they’re part of a study, says Edward Diener, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the University of Utah, who worked with Beaman on a number of papers. The annual tradition of using kids as research subjects has seen a renewed interest of late, and the particular appeal is that these real-life examples can contribute interesting insights into human behavior. Of course, based on any one study, you wouldn’t say a theory of human nature is supported or not supported, says Bonnie Klentz, Professor of Psychology at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. But observing trick-or-treaters in their element does provide some unique benefits. The anonymity—or self-perceived anonymity—of trick-or-treaters can make for some particularly interesting research. Scott Fraser, professor of neurophysiology teaching at the University of California-Los Angeles, realized that made them ripe for testing one of the conditions of “deindividuation theory,” the idea that behavior is dictated by context—and something like anonymity can make people less inhibited. In the early ’70s, Fraser, Beaman and Diener designed a study involving more than 1,300 kids in the greater Seattle area on Halloween night. When the kids were told they may only take one candy, and then left them alone in the room, the kids who remained totally anonymous — meaning they weren’t asked their names — took the most candy, while the kids who were asked their names took the least. “If you want to control behavior, you need to make people identifiable,” Fraser concludes, noting this kind of thinking explains why surveillance cameras can influence behavior. Most of these “thieves” only took an extra piece or two, but a few took many more. (Diener says jokingly: “I wonder what those kids are doing now?”) In another experiment, kids encountered either a candy bowl with a mirror behind it or a candy bowl without a mirror. They were told they could take one treat. Researchers stood behind a sheet decorated with drawings of witches and ghosts and they spied on the children through the little peepholes. “When the mirror was present, fewer kids took extra candy,” Klentz says. “Kids who were 9 and older were more influenced by mirror than younger kids.” This suggests “it’s at a certain age when kids are able to reflect back and see themselves as an outsider would see them,” says Klentz. Researchers have also shown that the notion of “free”—as in free Halloween candy—can lead to some irrational decision-making. Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, gave trick-or-treaters a few Hershey’s Kisses and asked them whether they would rather give him one Hershey’s Kiss to get a small Snickers bar, or two for a big Snickers. Most gave him the two for the bigger one. But when asked if they would rather have the small Snickers bar for free or the big one for one Hershey’s Kiss, most kids went for the free deal, even though it was less candy. The experiment is just an example of the “kinds of mistakes we do in the name of free,” which will make us “do irrational things, like drive a longer distance just to get gasoline” when people should really think about free as just another number, says Ariely, who describes this experiment in his 2008 book _Predictably Irrational._ Indeed, much of the research on trick or treaters highlights things we already know about human behavior: “When our attention is focused on us, we tend to behave in more socially appropriate ways,” Klentz says. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Somebody right this way. Would you ever enter a haunted house? Haunted attractions are multi million dollar industry that had become a Halloween season fixture in America. But how did this hair raising tradition start? The haunted house that gets credit as the first one ever was [ UNKNOWN ] and [ UNKNOWN ] ghost house opened in 1915. The Edwardian building is celebrating its 100 birthday and can still be visited in it's home in the UK. But in the early 20th century most haunted houses were still made by people messing around at home just for fun. So let's skip forward to the haunted house that spurred the present day sensation. That's right, the Disney Haunted Manchin. The indoor ride opened at Disney in 1969 and featured dancing ghosts, rattling doors and a stretching room. The haunted manchin may not have been the first haunted house. But it started a round of commercial interest in haunted houses. And proved that they could be profitable. The 70s saw a huge increase in haunted houses. Why? Some scholars say, that at a time of real violence and fear in American society, urban legends about Halloween crime made the holiday scarier. Movies like Halloween reinforced that fright. In response many people looked for a way to move the celebration inside. [ SOUND ] Another ingredient was that many haunted houses in the 70s were charities rated by Jaycees across the country. They packaged a haunted house fundraising model and distributed materials across chapters. But for- profit haunted attractions also became popular, like Knott's Scary Farm in California In the late 80s and early 90s, big amusement park chains, like Six Flags and Universal, started transforming their parks into full horror experiences, complete with haunted houses and mazes. Six Flags took big business haunts one step further, with licensed attractions, such as Alice Cooper's Brutal Planet and Saw, The Maze. But whether or not you live near a big theme Park. You're likely to find a haunted house somewhere near you. There are thousands of them cropping up every year. Only one question remains. Are you brave enough? 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