“Not All Dolls”

A fear of dolls does have a proper name, pediophobia, classified under the broader fear of humanoid figures (automatonophobia) and related to pupaphobia, a fear of puppets. But most of the people made uncomfortable by the doll room at Pollock’s Toy Museum probably don’t suffer from pediophobia so much as an easy-to-laugh-off, often culturally reinforced, unease. “I think people just dismiss them, ‘Oh, I’m scared of dolls’, almost humorously — ‘I can’t look at those, I hate them,’ laughingly, jokingly. Most people come down laughing and saying, ‘I hated that last room, that was terrible,’” Hoyt says. Dolls — and it must be said, not all dolls — don’t really frighten people so much as they “creep” them out. And that is a different emotional state all together.

Please do not lump all doll fears together, that is disrespectful to both dolls and fears. More important information is available here.

h/t Hazel Cills.