--- title: Psychology Explains Why Haunted Houses Creep Us Out description: Haunted houses have long been a subject of human fascination, but what is the psychology behind our horror and obsession with them? canonical: https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-30T13:38:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:38:19.975Z article:section: Ideas og:title: This Is Why Haunted Houses Creep Us Out og:description: Scary things can trigger your ‘agent detection’ mechanisms og:url: https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f8fbf36313921ec/69886eebe20a87620ca8df97/haunted-house-fog-tree.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3600 og:image:height: 2025 og:image:alt: haunted-house-fog-tree og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is Why Haunted Houses Creep Us Out twitter:description: Scary things can trigger your ‘agent detection’ mechanisms twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f8fbf36313921ec/69886eebe20a87620ca8df97/haunted-house-fog-tree.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is Why Haunted Houses Creep Us Out > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## 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 [Frank T McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation](https://time.com/author/frank-t-mcandrew/) ## Frank T McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation Oct 30, 2015 1:38 PM UTC  mysterious house in foggy forest mysterious house in foggy forest Getty Images by [Frank T McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation](https://time.com/author/frank-t-mcandrew/) ## Frank T McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation Oct 30, 2015 1:38 PM UTC The Haunted House is a time-honored horror setting. All of us have shivered our way through spooky flicks such as _The Haunting_, _The Amityville Horror_, _The Sentinel_ and _Poltergeist_. It’s not only at the movies that we pay good money to frighten ourselves to death: commercial haunted houses are an integral part of 21st-century Halloween theater, with an estimated 5,000 such attractions [operating in the United States each year](http://www.hauntedhouseassociation.org/haunted%5Fattraction%5Finformation.cfm). The portrayal of cinematic haunted houses has remained remarkably consistent across time, and the architects of our annual macabre Halloween rituals incorporate all of the same bells and whistles (okay – creaks and groans) that we’ve come to expect. From a psychological point of view, the standard features of haunted houses trigger feelings of dread because they push buttons in our brains that evolved long before houses even existed. These alarm buttons warn us of potential danger and motivate us to proceed with caution. Haunted houses give us the creeps not because they pose a clear threat to us, but rather because it is _unclear_ whether or not they represent a threat. This ambivalence leaves you frozen in place, wallowing in unease. For example, it would be considered bizarre and embarrassing to run screaming out of a house that makes you feel uneasy if there is actually nothing to fear. On the other hand, it could be perilous to ignore your intuition and remain in a place that is dangerous. These are the [psychological mechanisms](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-ooze/201505/how-we-decide-whos-creepy) behind feeling “creeped out.” They may be useful if they help you maintain vigilance when threat is uncertain. They also help you manage the balance between self-_preservation_ and self-_presentation_ (ie, presenting yourself in a socially desirable way). While human psychology can explain what makes a haunted house so scary, it also provides the perfect guide to making one ourselves. **Things that trigger our ‘agent detection’ mechanisms** Evolutionary psychologists have proposed the existence of _agent detection mechanisms_ – or processes that have evolved to protect us from harm at the hands of predators and enemies. If you’re walking through the woods alone at night and hear the sound of something rustling in the bushes, you’ll respond with a heightened level of arousal and attention. You’ll behave as if there is a willful “agent” present who is about to do you harm. If it turns out to be a gust of wind or a stray cat, you lose little by overreacting. But if you fail to activate the alarm response and a _true_ threat is present – well, the cost of your miscalculation could be high. Thus, we evolved to err on the side of detecting threats in ambiguous situations. Things that activate hypervigilance for malevolent supernatural (or natural) agents abound in large, drafty old houses: rattling or creaking sounds in upstairs rooms; the sighing and moaning of wind passing through cracks; ragged curtains fluttering in the breeze; echoes; and cold spots. **Feeling trapped** [Research has consistently shown](http://faculty.knox.edu/fmcandre/enviropsychbook.html) that we need more personal space while seated than while standing, more space when we are in the corner of a room rather than in the center of it and more space in rooms with low ceilings. We feel uncomfortable when our personal space is violated anywhere, but especially so in situations where we feel as if escape will become difficult. Such feelings of discomfort are symptomatic of the fact that we are constantly – even if unconsciously – scanning our surroundings and assessing our ability to flee if it should become necessary. Consequently, a haunted house is our worst nightmare. The prototypical haunted house is in a remote, isolated location, far removed from the rest of society (think of the off-season resort hotel in _The Shining_, for example). If bad things _do_ happen, help would be a long time coming, even if communication with the outside world were possible. (Conveniently, in old horror movies the telephones _always_ stop working.) Also, the darkness and confusing layout of the house may cause us to get lost; at the very least, it would slow us down. Escape could further be impeded by hedges, iron fences or crumbling stairways, all of which are featured prominently in Hollywood haunted houses. **A womb with a view** [British geographer Jay Appleton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay%5FAppleton) was the first to describe two crucial features that determine whether a place is attractive or frightening to humans: the more “prospect” and “refuge” a place offers us, the more attractive it is. _Refuge_ means having a secure, protected place to hide where one can be sheltered from danger, while _prospect_ refers to one’s clear, unobstructed view of the landscape. Attractive places offer us a lot of prospect and a lot of refuge, or what [landscape architect Randolph Hester](http://ced.berkeley.edu/ced/faculty-staff/randolph-hester) refers to as a “Womb with a View.” In the words of Appleton, these are, evolutionarily speaking, places where “you can see without being seen, and eat without being eaten.” Unfortunately, most haunted houses make for a bad combination of very low prospect for us, and very high refuge for the creepy-crawly things that are lying in wait to get us. [Research has confirmed](http://eab.sagepub.com/content/24/1/35.abstract) that people experience such environments as unsafe and dangerous. Such places also lack what environmental psychologists refer to as _legibility_. Legibility reflects the ease with which a place can be recognized, organized into a pattern and recalled – in other words, a place that we can wander around in without getting lost. Thus, the typical haunted house is large, dark, surrounded by overgrown vegetation, and full of surprising architectural features such as secret rooms and closets under staircases. Attics and basements are also must-have items, and, of course, spider webs, bats, rats and insects make nice accessories. **The older the better** Most haunted houses have some sort of “legend” associated with them. It usually involves a story about a grisly death or accident. There may even be a history of suicide and murder. The older a place is, the more likely we are to perceive it as haunted because there’s been much more time for tragic things to have taken place. Stimuli such as moldy odors, antiquated Victorian or Gothic architecture, wood interiors and old portraits on the wall reinforce an ambiance of great age. Assuming that the house is no longer occupied, signs of life suddenly interrupted and frozen in time only amplify the fear factor. For example, remnants of a half-eaten meal on a kitchen table or clothing laid out on a bed waiting for a homeowner who has apparently vanished without warning create a frightening ambiguity about what may have taken place in the house. (There are bonus points awarded if the house is conveniently located next to or on top of an old cemetery or burial ground!) Ultimately, whether or not a house is perceived as haunted obviously depends upon something other than the physical features of the house. Just as important are [the inherent beliefs of the person exploring the house](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-ooze/201507/why-some-people-see-ghosts-and-other-apparitions). Individuals who believe in paranormal phenomena and have expectations that creepy things might actually be present in such a place are more likely to engage in the sort of top-down, cognitive processing that induces fear. For these people, otherwise innocuous but uncertain surroundings can become a chilling experience. _This_ [_article_](https://theconversation.com/evolutionary-psychology-explains-why-haunted-houses-creep-us-out-48209) _originally appeared on_ [_The Conversation_](http://theconversation.com/)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/"},"headline":"This Is Why Haunted Houses Creep Us Out","datePublished":"2015-10-30T13:38:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:38:19.975Z","description":"Scary things can trigger your ‘agent detection’ mechanisms","url":"https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/","keywords":["Culture","Psychology","Science topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f8fbf36313921ec/69886eebe20a87620ca8df97/haunted-house-fog-tree.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Frank T McAndrew, Knox College / The Conversation"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f8fbf36313921ec/69886eebe20a87620ca8df97/haunted-house-fog-tree.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"haunted-house-fog-tree","caption":"haunted-house-fog-tree","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/culture/","name":"Culture"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/","name":"This Is Why Haunted Houses Creep Us Out"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Haunted Houses Became a Halloween Tradition","description":"Are you brave enough?","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Pr5QL481/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-10-29T21:31:57.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Pr5QL481.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/","duration":"PT2M18S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4093283/haunted-houses-psychology/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```