Title: Should You Wear a Costume for Halloween? | Psychology Today
Headings: Should You Wear a Costume for Halloween?
Utpal Dholakia Ph.D.
Should You Wear a Costume for Halloween?
The pros and cons of dressing up for undecided readers.
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Reasons why you shouldn’t wear a Halloween costume
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Source: Happy Halloween by Praline3001 Flickr Licensed Under CC BY 2.0
To show off your creativity. For many people, most of the fun lies in visualizing and then putting together a creative costume. So even if you find the actual experience of being in costume to be rather uncomfortable (physically or psychologically), one upside of costuming is that it’s a great way to flex your creative muscles. Every year, some of the most popular and talked about costumes tend to be the most creative ones. Another benefit of creative costume design is it helps us learn about ourselves. As European social scientists Janine Fron and her colleagues point out, “Dress-up provides the opportunity for transformative play, for in dressing up and taking on new roles, we learn more about ourselves.” To try out a new identity. Today, virtually all opportunities to disguise ourselves and try on a new identity are limited to the online domain. In a virtual game, for example, you can explore what it means to be of a different age, race, or gender, or even a different species altogether.