A case of the “heeby jeebies”: An examination of intuitive judgements of “creepiness”.

Abstract

The present research examined "creepiness," a commonly referenced but little understood construct. In Study 1, 185 undergraduates (74% women) provided qualitative data on the defining characteristics of "creepiness." "Creepiness" was found to reside in the eyes, and was associated with men with ectomorphic-like bodies, with a dishevelled appearance, between 31 and 50 years of age. In Study 2, 48 students (71% women) rated black-and-white photographs of Caucasian male faces on a 7-point Likert-type scale for "creepiness," trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Pictures included 15 neutral images from the Sterling University Psychological Image Collection, 15 images from America's Most Wanted website, and 15 images rated most "creepy" in a pilot study. "Creepy" faces were perceived to be significantly less trustworthy, less attractive, and more "creepy" than the other 2 groups. There was a significant correlation between trustworthiness and attractiveness across all 3 groups, with between 25% and 58% of the variance in trustworthiness ratings explained by attractiveness. Results are discussed in terms of how judgments of "creepiness" are made, how "creepiness" may be less about physical peril and more about ambiguity of threat and violations of social norms, and implications for stigmatized populations such as the mentally ill.

Introducing and Testing the Creepiness of Situation Scale (CRoSS)

“…One word to describe feelings of uncertainty about how to feel during these situations and how to judge these situations seems to be “creepy.” Previous research has tried to define the term creepiness (e.g., Tene and Polonetsky, 2015; McAndrew and Koehnke, 2016), and has measured creepiness with single-item measures (e.g., Inkpen and Sedlins, 2011; Watt et al, 2017). However, no study so far has attempted to integrate theoretical assumptions regarding creepiness to develop a sound measure for creepiness.…”

“…In all of these studies, creepiness was measured with a single item (e.g., not at all creepy to very creepy , see McAndrew and Koehnke, 2016, and also Inkpen and Sedlins, 2011; Watt et al, 2017). This might be useful to capture the general creepiness of a situation, but it makes it hard to determine reliability.…”

“…For instance, McAndrew and Koehnke (2016) describe a dark tunnel as an example of a creepy environment. In addition, Watt et al (2017) stated that people are more likely to come across creepy people at night, and Boomsma and Steg (2014) proposed that people feel more queasy at night. The night relates to our concept of creepiness such that at night people might have the feeling that they are less able to predict what will happen, and that situations that occur at night are less transparent, simply because people cannot perceive their surroundings as well as during the day.…”

Swiping right: face perception in the age of Tinder

“…Watt et al. (2017) extended these findings by showing that creepiness largely resided in the eyes, that perceptions of creepiness were associated with violation of social norms, and that creepiness correlated positively with untrustworthiness.…”

The creepy, the bad and the ugly: exploring perceptions of moral character and social desirability in uncanny faces

“…The role of facial ambiguity in social perception is congruent with recent research on creepiness and the uncanny valley. With regards to the former, some authors argue that creepiness is an unpleasant emotional response that arises from some ambiguity in a potential threat and may rely on information gathered from certain facial cues of a target person (McAndrew & Koehnke, 2016;Watt, Maitland, & Gallagher, 2017). Creepiness may be better understood in the context of social interactions, being associated with violation of social norms and appraisals of untrustworthiness, which suggest that creepiness may be an adaptive response directed to increase vigilance during periods of social uncertainty (McAndrew & Koehnke, 2016).…”