
On the Nature of Creepiness [pdf] - rfreytag
http://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/McAndrew-Koehnke-2016.pdf
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cousin_it
Sometime ago I came up with the formulation that "you're creepy" means "you're
too focused on something that you want from me". It doesn't cover all the
cases, but it gives a hint on how to avoid appearing creepy.

~~~
sheepleherd
There is a large class of "creepy" which covers men creeping on women. In that
case your formulation is correct, but I would reword it as "you're too focused
on something you want, my ass and cleavage for instance, that I am locked in
competition with other young women to attract some cute guys--that's why we've
left left them only scantily and barely clad--but that guy is not you and your
leers make me feel self conscious."

Another big class of creepy which works in both gender directions but because
men are more threatening (for size if no other reason like testosterone)
perhaps seems more one way is, "you seem or are desperate for friendship so
you over interpret every little thing I do as a genuine or encouraging bond
between us and you overdo your reactions"

But I'm not sure what else people might want that would fall into the same
category. Salespeople, for instance, can seem "oily" but not usually creepy.

~~~
kaitai
I think it's interesting that you phrase things the way you do in your first
paragraph. When I moved to California for college from a cold place, I was
young and female. (Still female, less young now). Sometimes in southern
California it gets very hot. A logical response to heat if you want to be
outside is to wear a tank top. So sometimes I would wear a tank top. This
would be interpreted as being "locked in competition with other young women to
attract some cute guys" \-- which was creepy to me, because it's putting a
whole layer of sexual intent on wearing a tank top when it's 100 degrees that
was not present in the clothing choice. This sexualized interpretation by
random guys did increase the likelihood of encounters with high creepiness
factors as described in the article.

It is really hard to find a tank top that doesn't show cleavage if you are a
certain shape. Tank tops are not always about a struggle for cute young men:
these boobs are stuck to the front of me no matter what I'm thinking or doing,
and their presence is not a sign of interest.

To assume otherwise causes creepiness.

------
mcguire
" _Everything that we found in this study is consistent with the notion that
the perception of creepiness is a response to the am- biguity of threat. ...
We are placed on our guard by people who touch us or exhibit non-normative
nonverbal behavior, or those who are drawn to occupations that reflect a
fascination with death or unusual sexual behavior. People who have hobbies
that involve collecting things that we are predisposed as a species to fear
such as spiders or snakes, or things that can only be acquired after something
has died (e.g., skulls or bodies to be stuffed) seem creepy to us as well. We
are also wary of individuals who have a preoccupation with monitoring the
activity of others._

" _While they may not be overtly threatening, individuals who display unusual
patterns of nonverbal behavior, odd emotional responses, or highly distinctive
physical characteristics are outside of the norm, and by definition
unpredictable._ "

~~~
executesorder66
> We are also wary of individuals who have a preoccupation with monitoring the
> activity of others.

The fucking NSA for example.

~~~
mcv
Though not quite the same topic, I do think the NSA could be considered
creepy, and the definition of creepy should reflect that. A creep's interest
doesn't necessarily have to be sexual.

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etamponi
Interesting paper and... well, expected conclusions. One thing that makes me
skeptic about the entire work is that they use different p-value levels for
each hypothesis, which is bad practice. The entire meaning of the p-value is
to compare it with a previously decided threshold to be sure to limit the type
1 error rate

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randomname2
Interestingly the paper does not consider physical attractiveness as a factor,
other than (indirectly) "has very pale skin" (.566), despite considering a
separate "Appearance/ NV" variable.

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amelius
> The person had bags under his or her eyes

This makes me wonder, are we all destined to become creeps?

~~~
huherto
I believe there is an age when confidence is created. Teenage years. You carry
that status the rest of your life. Even if you are successful later in life,
you still feel a bit like an impostor. (see impostor syndrome) And it shows in
your personality.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2002/0...](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2002/03/short_changed.html)
"Height at age 7 or 11 turns out to have no impact at all on future wages. But
height at age 16 makes all the difference in the world."

~~~
Bartweiss
This is really interesting in light of the studies suggesting that tall people
are more successful.

Those results almost always claim that it's an _externally_ mediated result
(i.e. that we respect tall people more because they're tall). This would
suggest that it might be an _internally_ mediated result (i.e. that tall
people are more confident). That would make a lot of sense to me, since we
tend to be more acutely aware of our own height than other's heigh.

~~~
amelius
I can see a business opportunity here:

If you are a rich parent and your kid is too small, just buy him classmates
that are even smaller :)

~~~
klipt
Or just inject your kid with growth hormone - it's one of the primary
determiners of human height.

Of course, physicians will only prescribe it if it's deemed medically
necessary, i.e. your kid is way at the bottom of the height percentiles. "Not
tall enough to be a CEO" isn't considered a medical condition.

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tomp
> Males were perceived as being more likely to be creepy than females, and
> females were more likely to associate sexual threat with creepiness.

This appears to just be another one of those, largely undefined, vaguely
sexist, insults - like "bitchiness".

~~~
exolymph
Women realistically do experience a lot more sexual violence than men, so it's
not an unfounded worry.
[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm)

~~~
sheepleherd
Yes, women realistically do experience a lot more sexual violence than men, so
it is not an unfounded worry; but as ordinary and normal and safe reproductive
courtship entails a lot more approaches to women, the physically smaller
nurturing gender, by men, the larger more aggressive hunting gender, such
examples of deviant and opportunistic sexual violence can be seen to "come
with the territory" of our evolutionary history. It's nice to imagine that we
as a social species could have evolved past this, but in studying our history
on the scale of hundreds of years rather than evolutionary scales of thousands
of years, and in studying works of scholarship such as the Selfish Gene by
Dawkins, one may not be at all surprised that we are where we are, but perhaps
by continuing to educate one another we can takes steps to make all people
feel, and more importantly be, safer.

The reason I felt it necessary to add the "context" to your statement is that
our world consists of many many interacting postitive and negative stochastic
processes, and when we look at a simple "violence" statistic it might seem
"oh, this is terrible, we must stop this" when in fact things are much more
complex than that.

~~~
matt4077
Oh, but despite all the biologistic determinism, it really is that easy: there
is violence – and it needs to stop.

It doesn't matter why is exists, and even if we believe the stuck-at-13-years
simpleton you're quoting, an explanation is not an excuse.

~~~
sheepleherd
nobody is excusing it at all. But you are dreaming if you think you are going
to stop it cold turkey along with you stopping shoplifting, child abuse, elder
abuse, car accidents, bank fraud, armed robbery, etc. Those things are also
biologically determined, they simply don't involve the reproductive function
directly which seems to make you ... more optimistic? more outraged?

Actually, BTW, I have read (but not looked up myself) that if we count prison
rape, men actually experience more sexual violence than women, so that part of
the above formulation should perhaps be changed. And in terms of child abuse
including to the point of murder, women perpetrate more of it than men do, so
there is some value in looking at these issues from the point of view of
"strong vs. weak + opportunity" biology rather than "gender".

But you are correct, violence between humans is for the most part a very bad
thing, and I too would like to see it reduced as quickly as possible
regardless of the cause.

~~~
exolymph
The prison rape thing is a little more complicated than that, but thanks for
bringing it up, since I wasn't aware. More context here for anyone who's
interested:
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/21/us-
more-men-raped-than-women)

I do think evo-psych tells us a lot more about human nature than we sometimes
want to admit.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
I'm going to drop this here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0)
and yes it's kind of a novelty song but maybe it'll help some of the people in
this thread realize "hey maybe I shouldn't do that."

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Mendenhall
Being creepy = making people feel uncomfortable.

I think knowing how to make people feel comfortable around you is success 101.

------
yarrel
Also smurfiness.

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douche
How to be creepy:

1.) Be unattractive.

2.) Perform the same behaviors that attractive people do.

3.) Goto 1

~~~
randomname2
It's not necessarily the lack of physical attractiveness that's a problem --
more so the lack of social awareness in exhibiting such "high status"
behaviors as a "low-status" person, as mentioned in the paper ("People who
follow social rules of behavior are not perceived as creepy").

It's more socially acceptable for unattractive yet wealthy/high-status people
to perform such behaviors, as this can be explained by considering them
"eccentric" or "confident" rather than "weird" or "creepy".

~~~
noxToken
Is that not the same as what GP said? Your modifier is wealth or status.
Without those, you move from eccentric to creepy on the sliding scale.

~~~
randomname2
Perhaps. If for the sake of the argument there is such a sliding scale, maybe
attractiveness should also be a factor. Attractiveness is more than just
"physical attractiveness", and by definition pretty much excludes creepiness.

Not to imply that people who are considered attractive can't be creepy -- but
they do get more leeway.

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elcapitan
> In the study, I'm glad that clowns are finally being called out!

Also garbage collectors. Very creepy not to manage memory manually.

~~~
EthanHeilman
Dogs tend to get very upset about garbage collectors as well. Is there some
deep unease about strangers taking things away which used to be yours?

~~~
splawn
Idk, my dogs seem to like java and lisp on their bigger projects. Then again
they are known to be the worst at creating memory leaks whenever they hack C.

~~~
PeCaN
Weird. My dogs, which are rather naughty, use Lisp on most of their projects
too.

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defen
I guess this paper explains why my clown bordello failed.

~~~
_-__---
Clown-garbed garbage collection service, using found trash to taxidermy up
some foxes?

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grillvogel
creepyness is 100% based on the attractiveness of the person being "creepy"

~~~
mcv
Not true at all. It's entirely possible for an attractive person to be creepy,
and certainly for an unattractive person to not be creepy. Though I suppose
the creepiness itself doesn't exactly make you attractive either, so in that
way it could be a self-fulfilling prophesy or even a tautology.

But it's definitely not about looks. It's about behaviour.

~~~
jboles
Every good rule has an exception. Also it can definitely be about looks or the
person, as opposed to behaviour. Really comes down to how shallow the alleged-
victim is.

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Millennium
Careful. Anything that calls creepiness anything but arbitrary -and especially
those that say it originates in the one being called creepy- is bound to draw
the ire of the bitter untouchables (even though this only provides more
evidence for the claims the research makes). I applaud the people brave enough
to publish such research anyway.

