With Halloween only being a few days away, I wanted to take this opportunity to understand the psychology behind this massive holiday. Of course, you could argue that there's no social psychology behind Halloween but actually there is research and quite a few arguments explaining that Halloween has a massive social function in modern, western society. Therefore, in this social psychology podcast episode, you'll learn why is Halloween important, what are the social functions of Halloween and more. If you enjoy learning about applied psychology, social psychology and more then this is a brilliant episode for you.
Today's psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Social Psychology: A Guide To Social and Cultural Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
What Is The Social Function Of Halloween?
When we consider that the modern, western holiday of Halloween is a billion-dollar industry that often lasts two months based on an ancient Celtic holiday, we need to ask ourselves why. Why do people love Halloween so much so that I see Halloween decorations in supermarkets in late August and early September right up until Halloween? At that point in the calendar year, there is a very creepy mix of Halloween and Christmas decorations up in the supermarkets and that is just creepy.
So why do stores dedicate two months to this very popular holiday? How do they know they can make an insane amount of money from Halloween?
In addition, considering that the Celtic holiday that modern Halloween is based on is ancient and it was designed to ward off evil spirits and celebrate the dead, why has it endured?
Some academics have proposed that Halloween has a social function that is deeply rooted in our biology. Since the fear emotion that is caused by humans believing something is dangerous or threatening makes adrenaline as well as other hormones get released into our bloodstream. Ultimately, preparing the body for our fight or flight response.
Logically, this would make sense if fear was something that humans avoided because surely being scared is horrible. It is, but the fact that fear is horrible doesn’t stop people from chasing it.
As a result of if we make threatening scenarios within a safe environment, for example seeing a gory horror film in the safety of a cinema, then this terror and fear becomes socially sanctioned. This helps to contain our fear too. Therefore, this connects to Halloween because the costumes we use, enjoy and go out in allow people to experience some made-up fear.
Especially, as Halloween is essentially an imaginative form of play for both adults and children.
I know a lot of university students and my friends are looking forward to going to Halloween parties next week at the time of writing. My new friend is going to go to one with the Rock and Metal Society, and I think me and my housemates are going to do some pumpkin carvings. Whilst the Halloween party is scarier, both situations involve us creating a scary scenario in a safe, controlled environment.
In terms of the literature itself, American sociologist Amitai Etzioni argued that Halloween is popular in modern society because it acts as a tension-management ritual that allows us to play out and express our collective fantasies, anxieties and fears. He wrote that in a 2000 article in Sociological Theory and I think it’s largely true because we never get to play or dress up as witches, vampires, monsters and warlocks amongst other creatures. We are all scared of these monsters and it’s interesting that for one night of the year, we get to not be afraid of these monsters.
We get to express our fears and perhaps conquer them or at least understand that they aren’t as scary as imagine.
In addition, Dr Jason Parker, a psychology lecturer at Old Dominion University, supports this argument. Since in 2002, he spoke about how Halloween allows us to get a physical response because of us facing and being exposed to the physical expression of our fears, and this allows us to experience the feeling of accomplishment as well. All because Halloween plays with our emotions and allows us to feel like we overcame our fears.
In other words, if you have a fear of witches and their magic, Halloween allows you to see, interact and experience witches in the real world. Then you experience the physical reaction of fear and the associated emotions and by the end of the night because you are alright, you are safe and nothing bad happened, you can feel accomplished as you overcame your fear.
A final academic argument comes from a 2008 article by Cindy Dell Clark who proposed that Halloween is a complex process where the inversion of meaning is very common and important. Since according to her research, Halloween is popular because children gain “ascendance” through costumed trick-or-treating as well as us, adults, support the anti-normative themes of the holiday. Another way of putting her argument is that Halloween is the one day of the year when the social world can stop making sense and that’s okay. In other words, it is perfectly fine and socially sanctioned for adults not to be socially normal (like grown-ups dressing up and partying like kids) and for kids to get candy from strangers wearing fun costumes.
It gives everyone a break from the social norms of the year.
Furthermore, Professor Tamar Kushnir from Duke University, discussed in 2019 why we turn our fears into Trick-or-Treating. We do this because the scary and fear-inducing situations presented to us don’t present a true danger, so this stimulated fear is a good way to practise the experience of being afraid whilst there not being a true danger. As well as most people enjoy the process of being a little scared too, so people find joy in the process too.
Finally, death is our greatest fear and Halloween represents this fear in many different ways. For example, death as ghosts, zombies, demons and skeletons. Halloween represents all manners and forms of death so Halloween allows humanity to capture how we feel about death and one day no longer being here. As well as Robert Langs writes in his book Death Anxiety and Clinical Practice about how Halloween allows us to celebrate life with a great awareness of the inevitability of death.
Subsequently, if we link this idea back to the evolutionary and biological argument, Langs is effectively pointing out how our awareness that life eventually ends in life is fundamental to human evolution. This results in humans being anxious about death and these anxieties lurk and ruminate inside our minds, but they are never addressed in psychotherapy for a range of reasons. Probably because death is still too taboo within Western societies to discuss openly. As well as our psychological defence mechanisms of denial and repression play an active role in this lack of address too.
Nonetheless, it is Halloween that allows us to acknowledge and celebrate that death will come for us all and that’s okay. It is a part of life and that is why living and having a joyful and meaningful life is so important. And let’s face it, Halloween is a much more fun way of dealing with death anxiety than talking about it in therapy, right?
Social Psychology Conclusion
Whilst it’s very rare that I remember to actually do holiday-themed podcast episodes because I’m normally too busy to remember this would be a good idea until after the holiday, I really did enjoy today’s episode. Since now we all understand why Halloween endures, why people spend hundreds, thousands and sometimes even tens of thousands of dollars on Halloween decorations and how a pagan ritual survived 2,000 years and is bigger than ever. We understand that all now.
Halloween allows us to enjoy being scared and it evokes our fear response. Halloween teaches us that being scared is okay and we can feel accomplished in the fact that we face our fears and survive. Since we know we can face our fears, fantasies and nightmares, like witches and vampires, and know we will still survive. As well as Halloween allows us to confront our fears and anxieties around Death as a single united society.
Ultimately, Halloween is a wonderfully unique holiday. Sure, there are monsters, people dressed up in costumes and fear-inducing situations abound. Yet it is truly the only night of the year when every single person in the Western world is united in their fearful scenario in a safe, controlled environment. And there is magic in that.
There is magic and a wonderful social function in knowing that everyone is the same for a single night, a single holiday, a single fearful situation where everyone is scared and hopefully having a lot of joy.
Isn’t that just strangely wonderful?
I really hope you enjoyed today’s social psychology podcast episode.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
Social Psychology: A Guide To Social and Cultural Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
Have a great day.
Social Psychology References and Further Reading
Alhabash, S., Kanver, D., Lou, C., Smith, S. W., & Tan, P. N. (2021). Trick or drink: Offline and social media hierarchical normative influences on Halloween celebration drinking. Health communication, 36(14), 1942-1948.
Howington, A. Unmasking Halloween.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/psychology-yesterday/202310/the-psychology-of-halloween
Rogers, N. (2002). Halloween: From pagan ritual to party night. Oxford University Press.
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