Pretend, if you can, that you’re from another planet. You’ve never seen a clown. You know nothing of gentle Bozo or the circus or anything to do with fast-food huckster Ronald McDonald.

Late one night, you encounter a clown as you search some dark alley as you search for your missing flying saucer keys. What will you do?

You’ll whip out your space laser and coldly blast Chuckles to intergalactic bits, of course. Because with their exaggerated, blood-red mouths; bulbous noses; corpse-white skin; freaky laughs; and sophisticated seltzer weaponry, clowns actually look like monsters to the untrained eye.

This is why most sensible kids scream bloody murder the first time they encounter a clown: they know death has come for them. And now there’s a study to conform this.

Don’t send in the clowns

The University of Sheffield wanted to know how to brighten up the decor of childrens’ hospital wards. They asked 250 kids between the ages of 4 and 16 what they thought of clowns.

As it turns out, chiildren hate them. Every single subject indicated that they don’t like clowns. Even older kids find them frightening.

Terror in greasepaint

The problem lies in parents assuming they know what kids enjoy. Penny Curtis, a senior researcher on the study, says juvenile reaction to clowns is very unlike the effect they have on adults:

We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.

In short, the study showed that kids find clowns weird, not amusing.

What children actually like

Unsurprisingly, kids like what they know. Clowns are from another era. Today’s children prefer images of things from their own lives — bright colors and visual references to contemporary culture.

The University has banned clown iconography from their patient spaces, presenting kids with colorful, well-lit areas and modern images on the walls.

The Sheffield study appears in the current issue of Nursing Standard magazine.

Link: BBC News