Over the last couple of months, there has been a surge in stories about so-called “creepy clowns” prowling the streets. This trend has caused mild panic as schools fear about the effect on children, and even the White House has weighed in.

Terrifyingly, one such clown, with rainbow polka dots and curly blue hair even tried to abduct a small child earlier this month in Concord, CA. This lends some credence to clown-based fears, but there is more to the story than these incidents. What is it about the very nature of clown suited assailants that so deeply troubles the American public?

Humintell’s Dr. David Matsumoto explains that such a disguise “provides de-identification” for possible assailants. This means that, because their faces are obscured by makeup or fake noses, they are difficult to identify. The clown suits, in other words, create a sense of anonymity. This creates fear as anonymity can result in significant behavioral changes.

When individuals are recognizable or unmasked, they are more likely to follow social cues and expectations.  As Dr. Matsumoto pointed out, “Identity is a large part of how society regulates behavior.”

This subject has been extensively studied in the field of social psychology, and researchers have found that people wearing masks tend to act more aggressively, self-evaluate less frequently, and eschew social norms of behavior.

Moreover, clown makeup obscures facial expressions, and clowns are infamous for pulling pranks. Factors such as these exacerbate the existing problem that masks and de-individualization create. In fact, clowns compete with the likes of funeral home directors and taxidermists for the “creepiest” profession.

Clowns often even actively take on an identity different than their own. A lot of clowns have their own pseudonyms, calling themselves something like “Mr. Bibbles” instead of their legal names. This feeds into the idea that they are not acting like themselves, which combined with their anonymity, results in a fear that they will act violently, or at least erratically.

But this phenomenon is not just about why we find clowns creepy. Instead, it is about why we find what seems like a movement of clowns especially creepy. Part of the reason is that de-individualization is deeply intertwined with group conformity.

In a classic study, psychologists analyzed the behavior of masked children on Halloween, in order to determine if anonymity led to them committing a minor transgression: stealing extra candy. Almost unsurprisingly, they found that the majority of masked children would help themselves to the candy bowl, especially if other children were doing the same.

Even if the children lost anonymity after being asked for their names and addresses, the majority continued to steal if the first few children did.

This speaks to the fact that large numbers of masked individuals create a homogenized and de-individualized mass with this apparent proclivity for deviant behavior. This is a lot of what inspires fear over these creepy clowns: they are anonymous, and there is a large group of them. Why are there so many? Why must they disguise themselves?

Or perhaps we have all just read too much Stephen King.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more information on fear, read our blog on detecting fear here and the unexpectedly direct result of terror here.

By Samantha Harrington for Forbes

A month ago, my teammate and I made a really difficult decision while very emotional. Or maybe we made the decision and then got sad. Either way, from the outside it would have looked like fodder for all the Twitter trolls who say women can’t lead because they’re “too emotional.” They’d be wrong.

Looking back, a month removed from the moment we decided to pivot our business strategy, I’m grateful that we didn’t stop up the tear ducts and make a cold, emotionless decision.

But there’s a lot of debate in both psychology and business about the most effective role of emotion in decision making.

A study out of Carnegie Mellon found that when sad, people are willing to pay more money for things and sell things for less money than when their emotions were baseline. The researchers supplied participants with a pack of highlighters, induced different emotions and asked how much participants would sell or buy the highlighters for. The study found that people were willing to pay $1.98 more than at baseline emotion for the highlighters when sad and listed a selling price $2.95 less when sad.

Another study, this one from professors at Case Western, replicated risk by asking participants to choose between two different lottery options– one with a 70% of chance of winning a $2 prize and one with a $25 prize but only a 2% of chance of winning. They manipulated participant’s moods and tracked the lottery choices they preferred. Researchers found that anger and embarrassment led to an increase in risky decisions.

But historically, no major progress has come from a place of apathy and I certainly have made some of the best decisions in my business when I passionate.

So instead of trying to make decisions devoid of emotion, I’m trying to figure out how to best leverage those emotions and the data and facts my business collects to make the most effective decisions.

So here are three tools that I rely on to maintain logical integrity in decisions while keeping my heart in them. They even are effective in checking your emotions that come from outside of work.

Rely on your team: The biggest and simplest way that I check my decision making is by never making solo decisions. That’s the beauty of having a team around you. I can’t imagine how difficult decision making must be for solo founders. When my team is making any decision, much less a major one, we rarely find an immediate consensus. The process of getting to that point — defending your position and understanding other’s perspectives — always keeps us from making a decision that’s not based on evidence.
Take your time: If you have the luxury of time, don’t make a decision that you immediately set into action. Give yourself a couple of days, give yourself a week if you have it, and think about what you’ve decided and why. And if a few days later you think you made the wrong decision, then don’t hesitate to tell your team. Which also brings up the point: do not wait until the last minute to make a major decision.
Get an outside opinion: as essential as it is that your team get on the same page, it’s equally important to turn to a mentor who is removed from the day-to-day of your company. They’ll be able to give you a fresh perspective that’s not clouded by an emotional connection to your work. My team called a former boss of ours (thanks for always answering the phone, John Clark) and started out by saying, “We just need to make sure we’re not making a really dumb decision.” Talking it through with him and explaining out loud how we’d gotten to the decision made us confident in the direction we were taking our company.

Here’s the thing, even if you want to, it’s really difficult to remove your emotions from your decisions. A group of psychologists from top U.S. universities concluded in a 2014 study that, “emotions constitute powerful and predictable drivers of decision making.”

So everyone, and yes Twitter trolls this applies to you too, is making decisions imbued with their personal emotions. And that’s okay. Just make sure that you’re being careful to check that those emotional decisions are also logical.

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For more on emotions and how they affect critical thinking, visit this past blog post