Halloween is approaching, and along with the parade of lovable elves and fairies knocking on your door come some of the most disturbing phenomena: spooky haunted houses, wild parties and, perhaps most paradoxically, a new onslaught of horrific horror movies.
If you are not a fan of horror movies, you may be confused as to why some people like to watch such movies. Behavioral researchers have even coined a phrase for it: the “horror paradox.”
“There is no doubt that there is something really powerful that drives people to watch these things, because it just doesn’t make sense,” says Joanne Kantor, Ph.D., director of the Center for Communications Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Most people like to experience pleasant emotions.”
Defenders of these films might say they are just harmless entertainment. But Cantor says that if its attraction is strong, so is its effect.
Scary movies: Fear is real
Is the fear you feel when you watch someone being chased by an ax-wielding killer different from the fear you would feel if you were In fact Chased by an axe-wielding killer?
You are not in real danger when the violence is on screen. But your body becomes tense.
Sparks says that when people view horrific pictures, their heartbeat increases by up to 15 beats per minute. Their paws are sweating leather The temperature drops several degrees, their muscles tense, and blood pressure nails.
“The brain Not really adapted to new technology [of movies]Sparks says. We can tell ourselves that the images on the screen are not real, but we are emotional brain react as if they were.”
When Sparks studied the physical effects of violent films on young people, he noticed a strange pattern: The more fearful they felt, the more they claimed they enjoyed the movie. why? Sparks believes that scary movies may be one of the last vestiges of a rite of passage.
“There is a motive [that] “The males in our culture have to master threatening situations,” says Sparks. This goes back to the initiation rites of our tribal ancestors, where entering manhood was associated with hardships. We have lost that in modern society, and may have found ways to replace it in our leisure preferences.”
In this context, Sparks says, the more outlandish the film, the more justified the young man feels about bragging that he endured it.
Obsessive fascination
There are other theories to explain the allure of scary movies. James P. Weaver III, Ph.D., says a lot of young people may be attracted to them simply because adults resent them. For adults, pathological curiosity may be at play — the same kind that make us stare at motorway crashes, Kantor points out. Humans may have an innate need to stay aware of dangers in our environment, especially the kind that can physically harm us, she says.
Another theory suggests that people may seek violent entertainment as a way to deal with genuine fears or violence. Sparks points to a study that showed that shortly after a female college student was murdered in a community, interest in a film featuring a cold-blooded murder increased, both among the women in the student dormitory and in the community at large.
One common explanation for the allure of scary movies, expressed by novelist Stephen King, is that they act as a kind of safety valve for our cruel or aggressive impulses. The implication of this idea, which academics describe as “symbolic catharsis,” is that witnessing violence negates the need to implement it.
Media researchers disagree with this view. They point out that violent media is more likely to make people feel more hostile, view the world in this way, and be haunted by violent thoughts and images.
In one experiment, Weaver showed violent films (with stars such as Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal) to college students for several nights in a row. The next day, while the students were taking a simple test, an assistant researcher treated them rudely. Those who watched violent films suggested a more severe punishment for the rude assistant than students who watched nonviolent films.
“Watching these movies made people more cruel and punishing,” says Weaver, a researcher in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at Emory University. “You can actually bring up the idea that aggression or violence is the way to resolve conflict.”
long lasting effects
For some people, scary movies are too much — especially kids.
In surveys of her students, Cantor found that nearly 60% reported that something they saw before age 14 had disturbed their sleep or waking life. Cantor collected hundreds of articles for students who were afraid of water or clowns, had ideas obsessed with horrible images, or who were upset even at the mention of certain films, such as Nightmare on Alam Street. More than a quarter of the students said they were still afraid.
Cantor suspects that the brain may store memories of these films in the amygdala, which plays an important role in emotion generation. These film memories may produce reactions similar to those produced by actual trauma — and they can be difficult to erase, she says.
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