One explanation for why people engage in frightening fictional experiences is that these experiences can act as simulations of actual experiences from which individuals can gather information and model possible worlds. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study (n = 310) tested whether past and current engagement with thematically relevant media fictions, including horror and pandemic films, was associated with greater preparedness for and psychological resilience toward the pandemic. Since morbid curiosity has previously been associated with horror media use during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also tested whether trait morbid curiosity was associated with pandemic preparedness and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that fans of horror films exhibited greater resilience during the pandemic and that fans of “prepper” genres (alien-invasion, apocalyptic, and zombie films) exhibited both greater resilience and preparedness. We also found that trait morbid curiosity was associated with positive resilience and interest in pandemic films during the pandemic. Taken together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to frightening fictions allow audiences to practice effective coping strategies that can be beneficial in real-world situations.

Haunted attractions are illustrative examples of recreational fear in which people voluntarily seek out frightening experiences in pursuit of enjoyment. We present findings from a field study at a haunted-house attraction where visitors between the ages of 12 and 57 years ( N = 110) were equipped with heart rate monitors, video-recorded at peak scare points during the attraction, and asked to report on their experience. Our results show that enjoyment has an inverted-U-shaped relationship with fear across repeated self-reported measures. Moreover, results from physiological data demonstrate that the experience of being frightened is a linear function of large-scale heart rate fluctuations, whereas there is an inverted-U-shaped relationship between participant enjoyment and small-scale heart rate fluctuations. These results suggest that enjoyment is related to forms of arousal dynamics that are “just right.” These findings shed light on how fear and enjoyment can coexist in recreational horror.

The success of horror films, popularity of true crime, and prevalence of violence in the news implies that morbid curiosity is a common psychological trait. However, research on morbid curiosity is largely absent from the psychological literature. In this paper, I present a novel psychometric tool for assessing morbid curiosity, defined as a motivation to seek out information about dangerous phenomena, and use it to investigate the psychological nature of morbid curiosity. In studies 1 and 2 (ntotal = 1370), the Morbid Curiosity Scale was developed and its relationship to personality was assessed. Morbidly curious individuals were rebellious, socially curious, and low in animal reminder disgust. Study 3 (n = 317) demonstrated that trait morbid curiosity is stable over 4-6 weeks and that morbidly curious individuals prefer movies where threat is a central theme. In Study 4 (n = 137), participants were presented with a choice between a morbid stimulus and a highly controlled non-morbid stimulus. Morbid curiosity predicted over half the variance (r 2 = .53) in decisions to further investigate a morbid stimulus. These four studies provide evidence that morbid curiosity is a normally occurring psychological trait that can be accurately assessed using the new 24-item Morbid Curiosity Scale.

Although violence is a frequently researched topic, little is known about how different social features influence information gathering from violent interactions. Regions of an interaction that provide contextual information should receive more attention. We predicted the most informative features of a violent social interaction would be faces, points of contact, and objects being held. To test this, we tracked the eyes of 90 participants as they viewed images of social interactions that varied with respect to violence. When viewing violent interactions, participants attended significantly less to faces and significantly more to points of contact. Moreover, first-fixation analysis suggests that some of these biases are present from the beginning of scene-viewing. These findings are the first to demonstrate the visual relevance of faces and contact points in gathering information from violent social interactions. These results also question the attentional dominance of faces in active social scenes, highlighting the importance of using a variety of stimuli and contexts in social cognition research.

From scary stories to horror films and haunted houses, the horror genre is wildly popular. Although horror aims to elicit fear and anxiety in its audience, many people with anxiety are horror fans and some report using horror to cope with their anxiety. In this article, we provide a theoretical rationale for why people with anxiety might find relief in horror films. First, we discuss aspects of horror that could make it particularly alluring to people with anxiety and how some features of horror films have the potential to reduce anxiety in the moment. Next, we examine how engagement with horror could build skills for resilience in more generalized situations. We build on processes from evidence- based therapies (i.e., cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy) to explain how horror media has the potential to be used as a therapeutic tool. Finally, we discuss steps for future research on horror as a therapeutic tool for anxiety-related disorders.