There was a long-lasting man-made sound outside my home last night. I couldn’t come up with a good explanation for what the sound was or why it was outside my house. My brain naturally promoted the hypothesis that a psychopathic murderer was outside my house making the strange noises. I noticed this was absurd, and predicted that, in the morning, I would find this explanation much less concerning. Sure enough, when I woke up, I thought the whole thing was rather goofy.
Now, supposing there had been a psychopathic murderer outside my house, it wasn’t like I was at much more risk at night, since I was planning on staying indoors. This seems like a pretty clear manifestation of nychtophobia: fear of the dark magnifying our fears of being attacked or victimized.
My question is: does this apply more generally? Might we be more risk-averse at night, or otherwise biased?[1] Suppose I plan to soon leave work and walk home along a dimly lit path. Then suppose I make an unrelated decision—am I more likely to be conservative or fearful in weighing that decision, above and beyond the normal effects of having recently considered something slightly distressing?
- One study indicated that night owls are actually risk-takers, but there’s a lot of confounders there with respect to nychtophobia-related explanations. ↩︎
This is just anecdotal, but me, a friend, and plausibly Randall Munroe are significantly more socially risk-taking at night than during other times of day. This might be directly connected to the time of day, or just be a consequence of sleep deprivation.
I also have irrational fears during the night, sometimes, but I would guess that this is largely due to being sleepy, stupid, and alone, which causes me to be more suggestible to stray thoughts in general. I wouldn’t be surprised if darkness also contributes, though.