Is Trick or Treat a Playful Question or a Metaphor for Life?
Halloween is a reflection of our concerns about life and death.
Posted October 30, 2025 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
Halloween is the perfect opportunity to think about the dichotomies inherent in the human condition. While its origins are murky, it appears to have evolved from ancient Celtic celebrations centered on the change of seasons and superstitious beliefs about evil spirits and death. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church attempted to replace this pagan holiday with All Souls Day, dedicated to honoring saints and the dead. The word Hallow originally meant Saint, and was eventually combined with eve to create the term Halloween that we use today.
Although the holiday has morphed over the years, the modern version of the holiday still manages to incorporate dichotomous symbols that reflect our very human thoughts and emotions. We still fear uncertainty, worry about the presence of evil, and are superstitious about cats, mirrors, and things that go bump in the night. Our beloved jack-o-lanterns are a variant of the vegetables carved and lit to scare off evil spirits in earlier times. We even take delight in testing our ability to face our fears by visiting haunted houses, watching horror movies, and scaring or deceiving each other with masks and costumes. The phrase “trick or treat” itself highlights the contradictions in the human experience. It acknowledges the presence of good and bad in the world, while also reflecting an attempt to control what happens to us.
Perhaps we should think about the psychological concerns that underpin this contradictory holiday. Psychological research suggests that reminders of our own mortality motivate us to find ways to manage our fears about life and death. The theory of terror management asserts that we cope with our awareness of the inevitability of death by creating cultural explanations for our existence, the meaning in our lives, and what happens after we die. We then use these expectations to assess our own value and place in the social order. When our beliefs are threatened by external events, including war and natural disasters, we tend to cope by associating with people who share our values and rejecting, or even demonizing, those who don’t.
Although this can make us feel safer in the moment, it often perpetuates conflict, polarization, and the failure to communicate about perceived differences. Over time, these distinctions can ossify, leading to distrust and discrimination that transcends generations. The fact that our brains constantly seek to simplify the world by—classifying objects, people, and events into categories—only amplifies our tendency to see the world in all-or-nothing terms. People who share our religion, profession, or political beliefs are seen as good; those who don’t are judged as wanting, even if we don’t actually know them. We may temporarily feel protected when surrounded by others with whom we agree, but resolving our differences with our enemies truly reduces the danger they pose to us.
As we prepare to celebrate an ancient holiday steeped in the human desire to scare evil away using scary vegetables and candles, perhaps we might spend time thinking about what they symbolize. In many ways, Halloween captures the complexity of the human experience. We have to live in the present while trying to anticipate future threats. Unlike other animals that live in the moment and don’t worry about the future, our cognitive skills and language abilities make it difficult for us to ignore that our lives will end. However, acting out of superstition , isolating ourselves from people with whom we disagree, and ignoring our common humanity does little to alleviate this concern. The fact that children, of all different backgrounds, can spend Halloween dressed as princesses and pirates, shouting trick-or-treat to get candy, should give us hope. The holiday itself celebrates the dichotomy of human existence and the similarities between us. Acknowledging that we all have to find ways to deal with our existential fears and reaching out to help each other do so.
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Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford Academic. October 2002. N. Rogers.
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Mary McNaughton-Cassill, Ph.D. , is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and an award-winning teacher at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.