世論 What Japan Thinks

Although the traditional time for ghost stories in the West is around Halloween, in Japan it is summer as the chill ghost stories send down your spine cools you off in the summer heat, or so the theory goes. To find out what people thought about this, iShare took a look at scary stories.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of July 2009 509 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.4% of the sample were male, 33.8% in their twenties, 29.7% in their thirties, and 36.5% in their forties.

I am disappointed that the fundamental question “do you believe in ghosts?” was not asked. According to the survey that was the spur behind the creation of What Japan Thinks, in Q3 only 27.0% do not believe that anything supernatural exists. If you do believe they exist, please visit James Randi’s site and find out not why they don’t exist, but why no-one has been able to demonstrate in a properly-designed experiment that they do.

Research results

Q1: Where do you think scary psychic phenomena are most likely to occur? (Sample size=509)

	All	Male N=277	Female N=232
Hospital	26.1%	24.5%	28.0%
Graveyard	25.3%	27.4%	22.8%
Abandoned house	20.2%	20.2%	20.3%
Tunnel	7.7%	7.6%	7.8%
Lake, swamp	4.5%	2.5%	6.9%
Forest	4.3%	4.7%	3.9%
School	2.0%	1.8%	2.2%
Sea	1.4%	2.2%	0.4%
At home	0.8%	1.1%	0.4%
Toilet	0.8%	0.7%	0.9%
Cliffs	0.6%	1.1%	0.0%
Building	0.4%	0.7%	0.0%
Other	5.9%	5.4%	6.5%

Q2: Do you like scary stories? (Sample size=509)

	All	Male N=277	Female N=232
Love them (to SQs)	7.7%	5.8%	9.9%
Like them (to SQs)	20.0%	21.3%	18.5%
Dislike them	44.8%	50.5%	37.9%
Hate them	27.5%	22.4%	33.6%

Q2SQ1: Do you have a book, CD, DVD, etc of scary stories? (Sample size=141)

	All	Male N=75	Female N=66
Yes	23.4%	21.3%	25.8%
No	76.6%	78.7%	74.2%

Q2SQ2: Have you watched, listened to, or read a scary story on the internet? (Sample size=141)

	All	Male N=75	Female N=66
Yes	49.6%	45.3%	54.5%
No	50.4%	54.7%	45.5%

Q2SQ3: How do you like to watch, listen to, read scary stories? (Sample size=141)

	All	Male N=75	Female N=66
By myself	64.5%	64.0%	65.2%
With someone	35.5%	36.0%	34.8%

Q2SQ4: In which season do you most like to watch, listen to, read scary stories? (Sample size=141)

	All	Male N=75	Female N=66
Spring	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Summer	37.6%	42.7%	31.8%
Autumn	1.4%	2.7%	0.0%
Winter	1.4%	0.0%	3.0%
Enjoy them whatever the season	59.6%	54.7%	65.2%

Q3: Have you ever had a ghostly encounter? (Sample size=509)

	All	Male N=277	Female N=232
Yes (to SQ)	16.5%	14.1%	19.4%
No	83.5%	85.9%	80.6%

Q3SQ: How old were you when you have your first ghostly encounter? (Sample size=84)

	All	Male N=39	Female N=45
Six years old or younger	9.5%	10.3%	8.9%
Between 7 and 12 years old	26.2%	23.1%	28.9%
Between 13 and 15 years old	21.4%	23.1%	20.0%
Between 16 and 18 years old	14.3%	15.4%	13.3%
Between 19 and 20 years old	11.9%	12.8%	11.1%
Between 21 and 25 years old	9.5%	5.1%	13.3%
Older than 25 years old	7.1%	10.3%	4.4%