Are you afraid of the dark?
Summary
Although it is generally known that children are afraid of the dark, little is known about this anxiety in adults. The current article examines whether darkness has a psychological influence on people. This is done either by manipulating the lighting of a room (Experiment 1), or by reminding people about walking down the street at night (Experiment 2). Overt, implicit, and behavioural measures are used to investigate the influence of darkness. Affective self-reports and task performance did not differ between the light and dark condition. However, gender differences revealed that women tend to be more scared of the dark than men, while as children, men and women indicated to be equally scared. Additional analyses also revealed that people’s believe in a just world does not seem to be that stable. When reminded about darkness, this belief is lower the more a person has experienced unpleasant things in the dark.