I’ve got my tickets for the local horror and science fiction movie festival that runs every Halloween. Even splashed out on a fan badge because it works out cheaper. The first time we went was out of curiosity, to see Anna and the Apocalypse – a Scottish zombie musical. It was a bit rough around the edges but great fun, and we wouldn’t have seen it but for the festival.
I would love to be in the United States for Halloween, to see if it’s really like the movies. It is ironic that Halloween, as we currently experience it, was imported to the US by Irish immigrants. It has grown and morphed over time, and has gradually been re-imported back to Europe. More on how Europeans feel about this in a second.
Google Scholar pops up a surprising number of hits for “psychology of Halloween”. One immediately caught my eye for the topic – stealing candy – but also for age (it was published in 1976) and, mainly, the name of the author, Ed Diener. Diener is a real bigwig these days in the psychology of life satisfaction.
Back in 1976, he was hiding in the bushes of a housing complex, waiting for children to come trick-or-treating. Actually, that’s not true. All I know is that there was a hidden observer who recorded whether children nicked lollies or money when the nominal householder left the goodies briefly unattended. But I’m imaging Diener hiding in the bushes with a notebook.
Before I tell you the results, and who was most likely to take that early step on a life of crime, let’s reflect on the participants. The paper says 1352 children visited the complex over four hours that Halloween. I live at the top of a hill in Wellington and it’s a hard slog to get to my front door, but we’re lucky to get four or five intrepid young mountaineers holding out their lolly bags. Clearly, Halloween is a big deal.
In fact, Halloween is a big economic deal. It’s one of the seven most profitable days in the US, and in 2023, Americans spent almost US$4 billion on decorations, another $4b on costumes and the same again on confectionary. That’s an awful lot of kids hyped up on high-fructose corn syrup.
In fact, it’s this commodification that now grates with Europeans who exported All Hallows Eve to North America. Qualitative studies show European ambivalence that pits the idea that it’s all good fun and a chance for kids to dress up and get out against, not just commodification but specifically Americanisation of this traditional “holiday”.
So, Diener and his colleagues watched a lot of kids. Almost exactly 30% of the little tykes broke the rules and pocketed extra lollies (65% of transgressions), money (14%), or lollies and nickels (21%). I don’t know whether to be surprised it’s so low or so high.
This study happened in the mid-70s, so students of psychology history can imagine what Diener was interested in. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo was making a splash with his Stanford Prison study and arguing that people can “deindividuate” when they get together in groups, losing their individuality and moral guardrails at the same time. Zimbardo had gone even further, running one humorous study in which participants were rendered anonymous by wearing 70s-style flowery pillowcases over their heads with eyeholes cut out.
Sure enough, kids were more likely to offend when they were anonymous. In Diener’s study, anonymous means they weren’t asked their names by the candy guardian. Children were more likely to nick stuff when they were in a group, when they felt anonymous, and anonymous children in groups were most likely to leave with bonus lollies or cash.
So, expect me to ask your name before I hand over the goodies come this Halloween.
