{"id":918,"date":"2022-01-13T19:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T18:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=109066"},"modified":"2022-01-13T19:20:10","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T18:20:10","slug":"scream-the-psychology-of-why-we-love-horror-movies","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/scream-the-psychology-of-why-we-love-horror-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Scream: The psychology of why we love horror movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Stephen Kelly\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 13 January 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Do you like scary movies<\/a>? Of course you do. That\u2019s why you\u2019re here, reading this article, dressed as Ghostface from Scream<\/em>, polishing your knives in anticipation of the new movie. But perhaps a more interesting question for Ghostface to have asked 26 years ago is not whether you do <\/em>like scary movies, but why<\/em> do you like scary movies? Why are we so drawn towards an experience which make us feel so much fear and revulsion, that is tailor-made to cause us as much distress as possible?<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who are high in sensation-seeking tend to get pleasure from extreme feelings,\u201d explains Coltan Scrivner<\/a>, a researcher at the University of Chicago who\u00a0specialises in the psychology of morbid curiosity, \u201cand horror movies are one way for them to do that. But also they are only a sub-portion of the people who enjoy horror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most people, according to Scrivner, are \u2018white knucklers\u2019, people who are genuinely afraid of horror movies but still enjoy them. \u201cThese are the people who feel as if they learn something about themselves through scary experiences,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis matches up with data which shows that kids who engage in thrilling or scary play might be at a lower risk for things like anxiety later in life, because they\u2019re learning how to navigate negative emotions, high arousal, and learning that they can get through those situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

This leads into one of the more popular theories in the field, which is that horror allows us to rehearse scary and dangerous situations in a safe space. \u201cAnxiety and fear are feelings that people tend to avoid in everyday life,\u201d says Scrivner, \u201cso we don\u2019t have a lot of practice at it. But experiencing those emotions in a playful way allows you to feel in control. It\u2019s like a flight simulator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the dangers and fears that we rehearse in horror have their roots in primal fear. A popular horror film technique, for example, is to mimic dangerous, natural sounds that instinctively signify danger \u2013 like The Exorcist<\/em>, which mixed recordings of angry bees and people screaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of studies showing that people are able to, without any experience, pay attention to snakes more than other kinds of dangers,\u201d says Scrivner, who again compares horror to the games we played as children. \u201cA game like tag seems fairly benign,\u201d he says, \u201cbut if you think about it, it\u2019s really just predator-chase play. It\u2019s the same with hide-and-seek, where you\u2019re essentially hiding from someone out to get you.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, sometimes the fears that scary movies tap into are more literal and relevant. Scrivner notes that in if you look at the Google trend map for American searches and type in coronavirus, \u201cyou will see a small bump in January 2020 and then a large peak in mid-March\u201d. The peaks correspond with early information about the virus and then the announcement of restrictions a few months later.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you also search for horror movies you\u2019ll see the same trend \u2013 a bump in early January, a larger peak in March,\u201d he says. Does this suggest that people were using the safe space of horror to process scary real-life events? \u201cThe big example is [pandemic thriller] Contagion<\/em> becoming super popular in March and April of 2020,\u201d he says. \u201cIt showed what a pandemic might look like, but in a safe way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Ghostface\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Ghostface in Scream<\/em> (2022) \u00a9 Alamy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

But of course, people don\u2019t just watch horror movies for educational purposes. They watch them because they are enjoyable. Scrivner suggests that this has a lot to do with our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which regulate bodily functions such as heart rate and arousal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of them like two gas pedals,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhen you\u2019re getting ramped up and anxious, your sympathetic nervous system increases things like heart rate and adrenaline output. And then once you overcome a dangerous situation, the sympathetic nervous system calms down just a little bit and parasympathetic ramps up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe parasympathetic is more of your rest and relaxation. It increases digestion. It releases those feel-good hormones; basically, the same things that drugs do to make you feel good.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, by simulating the experience of overcoming something dangerous \u2013 like surviving a jump-scare or finishing a horror movie \u2013\u00a0you can essentially trick the parasympathetic nervous system into spiking and giving you a rush of pleasure and relief. Who needs rollercoasters<\/a> when you have a knife emerging from the dark?<\/p>\n

About our expert, Coltan Scrivner<\/h4>\n

Coltan is a PhD candidate at The University of Chicago in the Department of Comparative Human Development and a Fellow at the Institute for Mind and Biology. He studies what draws us into monsters, murderers, and the macabre, and he is writing a book on morbid curiosity, to be published by Penguin Random House in 2023.<\/p>\n

Read more from\u00a0Popcorn Science<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n