How Horror Movies and True Crime Can Make You Happier
Psychologist Coltan Scrivner explains why humans are drawn to morbid and scary things, arguing that this "morbid curiosity" is a fundamental part of human nature. He suggests that engaging with fear in safe settings, like horror movies or haunted houses, can build emotional resilience and help cope with real-life anxiety.
Deep Dive Analysis
15 Topic Outline
Introduction to Morbid Curiosity and Guest Coltan Scrivner
Defining Morbid Curiosity and Early Personal Experiences
Negativity Bias and Threat Bias in Human Attention
Evolutionary Roots: Predator Inspection in Animals
Human Learning About Danger Through Stories and Media
Four Categories of Morbid Curiosity Explained
Morbid Curiosity's Presence in Modern Entertainment and News
Challenging the Scapegoat Narrative of Morbid Curiosity
The Role of Play in Practicing for Dangerous Situations
Kids' Engagement with Scary Play and Morbid Curiosity
COVID-19 Study: Horror Fans and Pandemic Resilience
Why Anxious People Are Drawn to Scary Movies
Three Types of Horror Fans and Their Motivations
Benefits of Scary Play for Emotional Regulation
Practical Advice for Safely Exploring Morbid Curiosity
8 Key Concepts
Morbid Curiosity
An interest in things that are threatening or potentially dangerous, which can include actual threats or fictional ones like ghosts or monsters. It often involves seeking out feelings of fear in a safe setting, allowing individuals to learn and practice coping mechanisms without real-world risk.
Negativity Bias
The phenomenon where negative events or information capture our attention and memory more powerfully than positive or neutral things. The guest suggests that at its core, this bias is often driven by a 'threat bias' towards potential dangers.
Threat Bias
A fundamental bias where human attention is powerfully drawn to potential dangers or threats. This bias is considered central to morbid curiosity and has evolutionary advantages, as it helps individuals identify and learn about what could harm them.
Predator Inspection
A behavior observed in prey animals where they stop and pay attention to a potential predator when it's not actively hunting. This allows young or less experienced animals to learn about the predator's appearance, behavior, and movements in a relatively low-risk situation, improving their survival skills.
Scary Play
A form of play, common in animals and humans, that helps individuals safely practice or rehearse events or interactions involving danger or threats that they might experience later in life. It allows for the development of practical skills (like hiding or running) and emotional regulation in a controlled, low-stakes environment.
Adrenaline Junkies (Horror Fans)
A type of horror fan who enjoys scary experiences primarily for the mood boost and the feeling of being alive that comes from high-adrenaline activities. Their motivation is similar to those who enjoy roller coasters or skydiving, seeking the physiological thrill.
White Knucklers (Horror Fans)
A type of horror fan who experiences genuine fear and anxiety during scary entertainment but still chooses to engage with it. These individuals are often interested in learning their personal boundaries of fear and how they would react in intense, simulated situations.
Dark Copers (Horror Fans)
A type of horror fan who uses scary things to help them get through difficult times in their life, such as depression, anxiety, or existential problems. They find that engaging with fear in a controlled setting helps them practice emotional regulation and develop resilience.
9 Questions Answered
Morbid curiosity is an interest in things that are threatening or potentially dangerous, which can include actual threats or fictional ones like ghosts, aliens, or monsters, often sought out in safe settings.
Humans are drawn to scary things because of an evolutionary 'threat bias,' which makes us pay powerful attention to potential dangers, allowing us to learn about threats in a safe, low-cost way through stories, media, and play.
Humans can learn about danger through transmissible culture like stories, books, movies, and TV shows, which provide 'psychologically real' scenarios and exaggerated features of threats, making learning about predators or dangerous situations very efficient and safe.
Morbid curiosity can be broadly categorized into an interest in the minds of dangerous people, violence itself, bodily injuries or violations, and the supernatural/paranormal.
No, studies suggest that blaming morbid curiosity (e.g., violent video games, horror movies) for real-world violence is often a short-sighted scapegoat; for example, school shooters are often less interested in violent video games than non-shooters.
Play helps animals and humans safely practice or rehearse events or interactions they might experience later in life, allowing them to develop skills like hiding, running, social interaction, and emotional regulation in a low-stakes environment.
Yes, a study during the COVID-19 pandemic found that horror movie fans reported lower physiological distress, and morbidly curious individuals reported higher positive resilience, suggesting practice with simulated threats can build coping skills.
Anxious people are often the most likely to watch horror movies, possibly because they are seeking information about threats or are subconsciously using the experience to practice regulating their emotions and confronting their fears in a controlled environment.
Beyond a mood boost for some, many participants in haunted house studies reported learning about the boundaries of their fear, how they would react in high-intensity situations, and developing as individuals by practicing emotional regulation skills.
10 Actionable Insights
1. Build Resilience Through Scary Media
Consume horror movies or other forms of scary entertainment to build psychological resilience and preparedness for real-life stressful or dangerous events, which can lead to lower physiological distress and greater optimism about handling future challenges.
2. Practice Emotion Regulation with Scary Play
Engage in “scary play” (like haunted houses or horror media) to practice regulating intense negative emotions such as fear and anxiety, learn your emotional boundaries, and understand how you react in high-intensity situations, thereby building mastery over these emotions.
3. Gradually Increase Exposure to Fear
When exploring scary entertainment or experiences, start with “easy stuff” that you know you can handle, then gradually increase the intensity, pushing yourself to the “edge of what you’re able to do” to effectively practice emotion regulation without being overwhelmed.
4. Employ Physical Fear Regulation Tactics
When engaging with scary content, use physical tactics like pausing, covering your eyes, turning down sound, or turning on lights, as these are effective emotional regulation skills that help manage anxiety and fear, allowing you to gradually build tolerance.
5. Practice Cognitive Emotion Regulation
Beyond physical tactics, actively practice cognitive emotion regulation skills like reframing (e.g., reminding yourself that the scary content isn’t real) to gain mastery over negative emotions and improve your ability to manage them in real-life situations.
6. Feel Negative Emotions to Process Them
Instead of suppressing negative emotions like anxiety, allow yourself to fully feel them, especially in safe, controlled environments (like engaging with scary entertainment), as this practice can help you process and move through them more effectively.
7. Pause and Strategize When Facing Fear
When engaging with scary or anxiety-inducing content in a safe setting, utilize breaks (like pausing a game or finding a “safe room”) to collect yourself, strategize, and plan your next move, as this can help you learn to control feelings of anxiety and fear.
8. Utilize Stories to Learn About Danger
Instead of direct, dangerous encounters, learn about potential threats (like dangerous animals or people) by listening to or creating “psychologically real” stories, which offer a safe and cost-effective way to gain valuable knowledge about dangerous situations and how to react.
9. Learn from Observing Threats (Safely)
Observe potential threats and dangers, even when they are not actively harmful, to learn valuable information about their characteristics and behaviors, which can serve you later in life, especially when done from a position of lower risk.
10. Prioritize Sharing Threatening Information
When communicating information, especially about products or situations, prioritize sharing potentially threatening or negative details, as people are more likely to remember and pass on such information due to an inherent threat bias, which can protect others.
5 Key Quotes
In humans, and sometimes in other animals, but especially in humans, we sometimes seek out feelings of fear with the caveat that we're typically safe when we do that.
Coltan Scrivner
If zebras could make movies or TV shows, they would absolutely make movies and TV shows about lions, right? That's what most of their TV shows and books and movies will be about.
Coltan Scrivner
The same morbid curiosity that people are blaming for his crimes is also why those people are interested in his crimes in the first place and what caused them, right? That's why they're listening to podcasts about him and watching Netflix series about him and so on.
Coltan Scrivner
Our instinct isn't to practice regulating our emotions. It's to avoid emotions all the time, right?
Dr. Laurie Santos
I think it does desensitize you, but not to violence per se, not to real violence. It desensitizes you a little bit to your anxiety and to your fear and it allows you to actually handle higher doses.
Coltan Scrivner
1 Protocols
Safely Exploring Morbid Curiosity for Personal Growth
Coltan Scrivner- Start with easy scary entertainment that you know you can handle, rather than immediately seeking the most terrifying options.
- Gradually increase the intensity, edging up to content that is just at the limit of what you can handle, aiming for a 'sweet spot' of about a 7 out of 10 on a fear scale.
- Actively practice emotional regulation skills during the experience, such as pausing the content, covering your eyes, turning down the sound, or using cognitive reframing (e.g., reminding yourself it's not real).
- Recognize that your 'sweet spot' for fear will evolve as you get better at handling anxiety, allowing you to tolerate and even enjoy higher doses of scary content over time.