Can Fear of the Dark Bias Us More Generally?

Question

This was originally posted as a question on LessWrong.

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?

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