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Study Find That Horror Reduces Anxiety
Image courtesy of New Line Cinema // Illustration by Kate Walker
An increasing number of studies are finding that engaging with horror content — watching movies and TV, playing video games, or attending interactive events like haunted houses — can actually be great for your mental health.
The Big Picture: Horror has fast become the biggest genre in entertainment, reliably buoying the box office between blockbuster tentpoles and drawing crowds all year round. As real life continues to feel more and more unpredictable and dangerous, the demand for horror shows no signs of stopping.
Behind The Scares: Turns out, there’s science behind our love of scares — engaging with horror content triggers and strengthens the area of the brain that helps us deal with uncertainty and anxiety.
That’s because horror storytelling and experiences are a sort of “play,” according to Coltan Scrivner, a psychologist at Arizona State University and author of Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can't Look Away.
Horror allows people to feel the emotions of extreme danger without experiencing real consequences — like strength conditioning for our resilience.
Our brains rely on “predictive processing,” per science writer and author David Robson — constantly interpreting new events and planning how we would respond. It’s why we yell at the screen when a character does something dumb.
Mark Miller, a research fellow at the University of Toronto, says horror storytelling is one of the best ways to keep our “anticipatory engine” engaged, so that “you are increasingly better set up to manage uncertainty over the long run.”
Big Finish: Scrivner wanted to better understand why people love horror, so he surveyed American horror-movie fans. He found that people fall into three categories: “Adrenaline Junkies” (people who feel “alive” in being scared), “Dark Copers” (people who want to be reminded of how good they have it), and “White Knucklers” (people who enjoy the feeling of conquering fear).
Scrivner then tested the theory with Danish researchers to see why people attend the Dystopia Haunted House in Vejle, Denmark — and he discovered that “those three ‘types’ replicated beautifully in a different language, in a different culture, in a different setting.” Our love of horror really is universal.
Next Watch: Custom-made horror games are already being tested as a form of anxiety therapy with kids in the Netherlands. So, we wouldn’t be surprised if that research expands to include psychologists prescribing curated movie marathons to help deal with acute stress.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.