An experiment on how darkness alters the way of thinking

What is it about?

The aim of our experiment was to investigate the effect of lighting conditions on the way of thinking. We asked university students to write stories in a semidark or in a well-lit room, and analysed their stories by the Regressive Imagery Dictionary, RID). RID is a computerized content analyzing tool, measuring primary process thinking (rather concrete, irrational, free-associative) and secondary process thinking (rather abstract, rational, reality-oriented). We found that students with high levels of fear of the dark wrote longer stories with higher relative frequency of primary content words in the semidark condition than in the well-lit condition, while others produce similar stories in both conditions. These results suggest that the thinking style of students who feared the dark was more unconsciously driven and relied less on reality testing in semidarkness as compared with the well-lit condition.

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Why is it important?

This study was the first to investigate the effects of lighting conditions and individuals’ levels of fear of the dark on the primary and secondary thinking processes measured in participant-authored stories. The results showed that darkness has a situational effect on the way of how individuals, who have fear of the dark, think. This result contribute to our knowledge about fear of the dark and nighttime fears.