Chapter 16 Study Guide Answers

The creepy part guy approaches you in the break room and you're immediately uncomfortable. What is it about him? The greasy hair? The weird express joy? The painfully bad-mannered chit chat?

All of the above, says a new study. Though we've been identifying other people as "creepy" for generations, few definitions of what creepy really is existed. But now, a study outlines the traits and behaviors that give some guys — yep, men score higher than women when it comes to ickiness — that creepy quality.

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"Creepiness is all nearly not being able to figure out whether in that location is a threat," said Frank McAndrew, Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College and author of the study. Men may be seen as creepier than women because they're perceived every bit more menacing, co-ordinate to McAndrew.

To research the topic, McAndrew asked 1,341 people to complete an online survey. The participants ranked how creepy 44 behaviors or traits were on a scale from one to five, where one was very unlikely and v was very likely. They were likewise asked which occupations and hobbies were the creepiest.

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What's "creepy"?

Creepy traits and behaviors include:

Standing too close to someone
Smiling peculiarly
Talking as well much nearly a topic, especially sex
Laughing at inappropriate times
Not letting someone out of conversation
Displaying unwanted sexual interest
Asking to take pictures of people
Displaying too much or likewise little emotion
Having bulging eyes
Having long fingers
Having pasty pare
Having greasy hair
Having dark center bags
Wearing dirty or weird clothes
Licking lips

Creepy hobbies include:

Taxidermy
Collecting things, including dolls, insects, and — eww! — fingernails?
Any kind of watching, such as bird watching or photography

The creepiest professions volition probably surprise no one:

Clown
Taxidermist
Sex shop owner
Funeral manager
Taxi commuter

The participants answers signal that it's possible creepy people simply don't understand social cues and norms. Wearing dirty dress or laughing inappropriately, for example, fall outside what people expect and indicate a warning almost someone.

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"The survey points out simply how negatively nosotros react to people who do not follow unspoken rules for social behavior," said Pontus Leander, an banana professor of psychology at the Academy of Groningen, who studied how creepy people literally give us chills.

"I was too struck by the finding that most indicators of 'creepiness' have to practice with nonverbal or physical characteristics. Creepiness appears to have a physical dimension," said Leander.

More enquiry needed

Just at to the lowest degree one adept doesn't concur with the paper's findings.

"It's all correlational so causal inference must exist muted, eastward.g., that 'creepiness' is due to the ambiguity of threat, goes too far," said Frank Farley, a professor of psychology at Temple University.

"Further inquiry needs to explore ethnic, cultural, diverseness, social class, literacy, personality and other differences in judgments about creepiness."

This story was originally published in Apr 2016.