r/CFBOffTopic • u/Jaguars1995 Clemson Tigers • Sep 07 '26
Discussion Monday/Labor Day thread brought to you by the random fact of the day
Random fact of the day:A researcher who studied children’s fear of monsters found that in virtually every culture girls are afraid there’s a beast under the bed.
But boys are convinced the monster is at the window.
The difference may be an evolutionary hangover.
It’s believed that primitive females were more likely to roost in trees so they feared what came from below while males, on the ground, may have worried about sneak attacks from the side
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u/Kiteflyerkat Baylor Bears Sep 07 '26
This weekend was awesome
Went on a jet ski ride at sunset yesterday. As my dad and I were talking selfies with my mom and aunt in the background, on a different jet ski, they flip over. So my dad and I have a selfie with a flipped over jet ski in the background with us smiling lol
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u/Benjilikethedog2 Lander • South Carolina Sep 07 '26
Today and this weekend in general has been great reading and watching baseball
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u/Critical-Passion2928 24d ago
Okay this one actually checks out, it's not just reddit folklore lol 👀. There's a real psychologist, Richard Coss out of UC Davis, who ran the study — kids aged 3-4 were interviewed about their nighttime fears and significantly more girls described an "underworld" full of ogres/monsters than boys did. His theory ties back to sexual dimorphism in early hominids like Australopithecus, where lighter, more flexible-footed females may have slept up in trees while males kept watch on the ground, which would explain why girls evolved to dread threats from below and boys got wired to fear stuff sneaking in from the side. Worth noting it's one guy's evolutionary theory rather than some airtight consensus finding, and other researchers like Peter Gray push back a bit, arguing the specific monster imagery kids latch onto is shaped way more by pop culture and stories than deep evolutionary programming. Still a genuinely fun rabbit hole of a fact either way.