Why Does It Feel So Good To Be Scared?

Plenty of things are scary these days, so why do people pay good money to see horror movies and go to 'haunted' houses? Learn why psychologists say these fearful experiences are helpful in this episode of BrainStuff. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain stuff,
luring vog obamb here on the menu of what's scary
these days, there are many threats to choose, from mass
shootings and uncertain political and economic future, nuclear war spiders.
So it begs the question why would anyone want more?

(00:24):
Why do people, in fact pay money to be scared
when there's already enough frightening stuff served up daily? But
that's exactly what tons of people do. We Horror fans
seek out horror movies, scary books, and haunted houses. We
pay to consume fear, and selling fear is an increasingly
profitable pursuit. For instance, the number of horror movies released

(00:45):
in only seven sixty two. The top twenty horror films
of seventeen, including Stephen King's It Sold, combined a hundred
and forty million tickets and grossed more than nine twenty
million dollars. But this is nothing new. Since nineteen sixty
horror movies have taken more than twenty four billion dollars

(01:07):
of our hard earned money at the box office, adjusting
for inflation. It's a big business and the haunted house industry,
and yes we can call it an industry now is
also capitalizing. It grossed more than three hundred million dollars.
Amusement parks another place to find heart racing attractions that
scare so many annually serve three hundred and seventy five

(01:29):
million people in North America alone. Of course, this brand
of fear served up by horror flicks, thrill rides, and
even haunted houses is a specific and in fact different
form of fear than what someone feels or deals with
if they're mugged or chased by wild boars. And that
is where we can find the answer to today's question,

(01:49):
why do we do this to ourselves? First, it's important
to know that there is a competing overload of various
definitions and associated nuances of fear. Lots of people study it,
lots of people have opinions. We'll break it down into
two simple types, capital A anxiety and capital F fear.

(02:10):
Anxiety is what keeps us up at night. It's often
experienced as dread, worry, uncertainty, nervousness, apprehension, and specifically, it
focuses the mind on possible future events that might happen
but have not happened yet, anything from nuclear war or
the end of democracy, to the injury or death of
loved ones, a terrible break up, the loss of finances, ETCETERA.

(02:34):
Fear that is fright, horror, terror, or panic is the
much more straightforward frenemy. It derives from what is right
in front of us, right now, an immediate threat to
our safety. This could be standing in front of a
crowd for a speech, an unfriendly dog running straight for us,
or that moment when we accidentally walk through a spider web.

(02:54):
Not anxiety about that possibly happening, but that actually happening.
It causes signal aficant near instantaneous fight or flight biological
changes in US. But further, in attempting to understand why
someone would want to experience something like fear, we also
need to acknowledge that it contains a subcategory which brings
about similar symptoms, but with mostly enjoyable outcomes. Margie Key

(03:19):
is a sociologist who studies fear and the author of
the Book's Scream. She and her colleague Greg Siegel, PhD,
the director for the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at the University
of Pittsburgh, have come up with an academic description for
this subcategory, voluntary engagement with negative high arousal stimuli, or
in other words, going to a scary movie or haunted

(03:41):
house and while allowing ourselves to feel the biological thrills
of being scared. As part of this, the overall experience
can lead to deeper meaning in our lives. In some cases,
it can even provide some therapeutic value for those experiencing anxiety.
Care says that experiencing fund scary can give us a
set of mastery over it that can feel very gratifying.

(04:03):
Here's a chance to feel like we've got it all
within our control. Here's how it works. Step one, we
choose to experience a scary activity. This step, perhaps the
most important, frames our entire experience. By exhibiting agency to
face something scary, we're acknowledging that we are in control
of it. We also realize the safety inherent in this

(04:24):
that if we walk into a haunted house, we're not
going to be murdered. Not really right. Step two, something
unexpected startles or unsettles us alike in the Blair Witch Project,
when someone is standing in a very dark corner, or
the Shining, when ghostly twins demand that we come play
with them forever, end ever, or in any number of

(04:45):
slasher flicks when the protagonist realizes that the killer's calls
are coming from inside the house. The original reference to
that maybe when a stranger calls. By the way, good trivia.
At any rate, we're on edge, which brings us two
step three. We exp variance fight or flight. Danger stimuli
is received by our brain and our sympathetic nervous system

(05:05):
kicks into gear. This is what kept the cave people
away from sabertoothed lions. Our bodies are flooded with adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin,
and endorphins. Our heart rate, blood pressure in breathing increase,
We sweat, we get goose bumps. In some cases, we
may scream, involuntarily jump or run for the hills. Don't worry,
it's all completely natural. Care says. This is the pedal

(05:28):
to the metal and all systems go, but in a
safe environment, one in which we choose to experience. It's
important to note that this is much different than facing
real danger, and that's what makes it fun. Care said,
even deciding to do scary, this is the protective frame
we've created for ourselves in our mind. We are being
open to engage with this material and suspend our disbelief.

(05:50):
It creates a different experience than if we were, say,
mugged at random. Our framing of the situation is then
going to be with that. In the context, screams mean
fun and not fear, which leads us to Step four.
We experience satisfaction on a biological level. Our parasympathetic nervous
system kicks in and it brings everything back down to
normal heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, sweating, and that urge

(06:14):
to run far, far away. Care said, this can feel
very relaxing. It's the rest and digest period. We're safe.
We can sit with that and reap the benefits. So
step five. Those benefits we share in the experience and
build relationships. Care said of hunted house, horror movie, and
roller coaster excursions. These experiences are often linked with friends

(06:36):
and family. We attend with them. We're building strong bonds
and a shared camaraderie that in itself can be really gratifying.
It's the stuff that nostalgia is built from. So why
do we choose to experience certain scary things? The rush, sure,
but also to make our lives feel more meaningful, to
make memories. Care also notes that a common therapy for

(06:57):
those who experience anxiety, that other brand of fear that
consumes many of us these days, is to do something
scary enough but ultimately safe, to activate your sympathetic nervous system.
She said. It's a physical sensation that feels good. It
gives you a mental pause. You become grounded in your body,
fully distracted by something in your environment, and ultimately you

(07:18):
realize that you survived something. You set a challenge and
you survived, which brings gratification. These days will take all
the help we can get. So what's your favorite scary movie?
Today's episode was written by Jamie Allen and produced by
Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other

(07:40):
satisfying topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot
com