The Influence Of Horror Movies
The allure of fear is especially evident with all the ghosts and ghouls about on Halloween.
With Halloween approaching, it's hard to avoid ghosts, goblins and other spooky decorations. But some people go even further, seeking out horror movies and convoluted haunted houses that are designed to scare the living daylights out of them.
What possesses people to seek out experiences that make them tremble with fear?
Enjoyment likely comes not from the fear itself, experts say, but from the physical and emotional release that follows scary situations.
For some people, the urge to feel fear also represents one manifestation of a sensation-seeking personality drawn to adrenaline-pumping activities like skydiving, rollercoasters or even drugs. Horror …show more content…
In a 1986 experiment, teenage boys and girls watched scary videos in pairs. Unbeknownst to the other person, one member of the pair was instructed to follow a certain script that either conformed to or rejected stereotypical gender roles.
When girls acted scared, the boys they were with found them more attractive than if they talked about how lame the movie was, the researchers found. Likewise, girls were more attracted to boys who acted brave and unfazed by frightening imagery."
"Horror movies are very huggable movies because people sit there and grab each other," said Stuart Fischcoff, a retired psychologist and screenwriter who is now the senior editor of the Journal of Media Psychology. "Boys can role-play being a man and girls can role-play being a damsel in distress."
There are other theories, too, for why people seek out situations that scare them. One is that we can project our own sense of evil onto whatever bad guys are represented in fearsome entertainment, which helps us enjoy watching as they are defeated.
Another is the idea that intense experiences remove us from our normal lives, offering something unusual to look at that can be hard to resist, much like a car wreck on the side of the
With Halloween approaching, it's hard to avoid ghosts, goblins and other spooky decorations. But some people go even further, seeking out horror movies and convoluted haunted houses that are designed to scare the living daylights out of them.
What possesses people to seek out experiences that make them tremble with fear?
Enjoyment likely comes not from the fear itself, experts say, but from the physical and emotional release that follows scary situations.
For some people, the urge to feel fear also represents one manifestation of a sensation-seeking personality drawn to adrenaline-pumping activities like skydiving, rollercoasters or even drugs. Horror …show more content…
In a 1986 experiment, teenage boys and girls watched scary videos in pairs. Unbeknownst to the other person, one member of the pair was instructed to follow a certain script that either conformed to or rejected stereotypical gender roles.
When girls acted scared, the boys they were with found them more attractive than if they talked about how lame the movie was, the researchers found. Likewise, girls were more attracted to boys who acted brave and unfazed by frightening imagery."
"Horror movies are very huggable movies because people sit there and grab each other," said Stuart Fischcoff, a retired psychologist and screenwriter who is now the senior editor of the Journal of Media Psychology. "Boys can role-play being a man and girls can role-play being a damsel in distress."
There are other theories, too, for why people seek out situations that scare them. One is that we can project our own sense of evil onto whatever bad guys are represented in fearsome entertainment, which helps us enjoy watching as they are defeated.
Another is the idea that intense experiences remove us from our normal lives, offering something unusual to look at that can be hard to resist, much like a car wreck on the side of the