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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Best to Coast to Coast podcast.

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Speaker 1: listen to the full episode, plus recent shows covering the

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Speaker 1: mysterious death of Kurt Kobain. The possibility that government may

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Speaker 1: soon reveal the truth about UFOs and the power of

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Speaker 1: now by heading over to Coast to Coast am dot

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Speaker 1: com at signing up for Coast Insider. Now here's a

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Speaker 1: highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeart Radio. Good evening,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Coast to Coast a m. I'm your host

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Speaker 1: for the evening Dave Strader, and Tonight it's a night

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Speaker 1: of fear. Fear. It's it's a universal human experience. But

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Speaker 1: do we really understand it? If if we're so terrified

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Speaker 1: of monsters and serial killers, why do we flock to

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Speaker 1: theaters to see them? Why do people avoid thinking about

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Speaker 1: death but jump out of planes and swim with sharks? Well,

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Speaker 1: our guest is here to enlighten us and give us

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Speaker 1: some insights to the sign of fear. Margie Kerr is

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Speaker 1: a sociologist who moonlights at one of America's scariest haunted houses,

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Speaker 1: and she has seen grown men cry and push their

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Speaker 1: loved ones aside as they run in terror, and she's

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Speaker 1: kept careful notes on what triggers these responses. She's here

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Speaker 1: with us the Thievening to discuss fear as a universal

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Speaker 1: human experience. And Margie, thank you so much for being here.

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Speaker 1: Glad to be here, Thank you for having me. Man.

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Speaker 1: We do love fear, don't we, From the highest roller

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Speaker 1: coasters to horror movies or gorror movies as they've turned

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Speaker 1: into over the last decade. Here, Why are we so

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Speaker 1: fascinated with putting ourselves in situations that we are terrified

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Speaker 1: or fearful of? Yeah, well, there's a lot of reasons,

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Speaker 1: and it's something that we have done as a species

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Speaker 1: really for most of our our history. If you look

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Speaker 1: back through time, you can find lots of different examples

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Speaker 1: of people choosing to scare themselves, either through telling stories

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Speaker 1: around the camp fire or doing things like you know,

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Speaker 1: flding down um hills that are covered in ice. But

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Speaker 1: we have always kind of found a way to push

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Speaker 1: ourselves in ways that are scary but also end up

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Speaker 1: being enjoyable or serving some function that ends up being

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Speaker 1: helpful UM. For example, telling stories around the camp fire,

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Speaker 1: conserve to teach the next generation about what they should

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Speaker 1: be afraid of out in the wild and how to

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Speaker 1: prepare for it, uh and create that sense of solidarity

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Speaker 1: UM and does feel good. There is truth behind the

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Speaker 1: idea of the natural high that happens when we're startled

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Speaker 1: and when we're scared in a relatively safe environment. Then

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Speaker 1: you look at at things like haunted houses, right, I

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Speaker 1: mean we put ourselves through traumatic experiences every day, putting

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Speaker 1: ourselves out there to uh, you know, go out and

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Speaker 1: push boundaries. Is there something cathartic about a good scare? Is?

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Speaker 1: Is your more danger involved in putting yourself through those

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Speaker 1: moments of terror? It really depends on the person and

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Speaker 1: their motivation. So we've found in my research and UM

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Speaker 1: and just my observations beyond just the research I've done

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Speaker 1: that for people who go into a situation looking to

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Speaker 1: get scared, it's it can be cathartic and people do

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Speaker 1: feel better afterwards. So for them, it's like running to

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Speaker 1: five k or um, choosing to climb do some rock climbing,

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Speaker 1: or doing anything that's challenging and also you know, pushing

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Speaker 1: us to do something that we're afraid of. Um again,

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Speaker 1: within that context of choice, and there's that that element

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Speaker 1: of uncertainty. We're not really sure how it's going to

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Speaker 1: turn out, um, but you know we're going to go

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Speaker 1: ahead and give it a try. So it can feel

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Speaker 1: um like a sense of accomplishment when we make it through.

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Speaker 1: And it's crazy because it sounds like, oh, well, why

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Speaker 1: would this ever really be something that is cathartic or

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Speaker 1: uh feels like an accomplishment when you know it's safe

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Speaker 1: or when you know you won't really be hurt. But

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Speaker 1: because the uh stress reaction, our threat response, that fight

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Speaker 1: or flight response, it feels very real in our body.

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Speaker 1: So making it through it feels like we've survived, you

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Speaker 1: know that that we did face a foe and come

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Speaker 1: out the other side. You know. I read an interesting

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Speaker 1: article not long ago that that talked about a perfect

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Speaker 1: first date is taking somebody on an experience where both

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Speaker 1: of you will feel a sense of fear. And that

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Speaker 1: is because I guess certain endorphins are released during that

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Speaker 1: that sexually bond people and actually arouse them. Is this

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Speaker 1: something that you're familiar with this is part of a

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Speaker 1: part of the new science of fear. Yeah, I am

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Speaker 1: familiar with a lot of this research. And it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: because there have been a lot of studies looking at

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Speaker 1: to help people associate to each other under times of

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Speaker 1: stress and showing that people who have a close relationship

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Speaker 1: when they're stressed together, uh, they do better together. So

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Speaker 1: there are hormones like oxytocin that are released, and that's

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Speaker 1: known as the love hormone or the social bonding hormone.

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Speaker 1: And uh, what the studies do show that there is

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Speaker 1: a closer sense of of bondedness or um caring for

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Speaker 1: the other person when when they're frightened or in an

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Speaker 1: extremely emotional situation. Um. So it's true to an extent.

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Speaker 1: But what's really interesting is that the opposite can also

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Speaker 1: be true. So just as it can bond people, if

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Speaker 1: there's an underlying distrust or if the person is not

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Speaker 1: someone who is you know in your inner circle, um,

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Speaker 1: it can increase defensive behaviors. So UM, I always tell people, yes,

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Speaker 1: you know, go do something that's a little scary, a

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Speaker 1: little sexy, but if you know it's with somebody that

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Speaker 1: you don't like, or you're kind of not sure about

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Speaker 1: it can actually end up increasing a sense of distance.

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Speaker 1: So it's you know, we're thinking that it's working as

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Speaker 1: that kind of chemical level of of circling the wagons

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Speaker 1: around those that we feel a sense of closeness too,

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Speaker 1: but also maybe keeping our distance from those we're not

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Speaker 1: so sure about. It is it fears a strange thing,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. I mean the fact that that you and

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Speaker 1: I could be sitting in the same theater, next to

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Speaker 1: one another, experiencing the same thing, and to you that

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Speaker 1: was nothing. To me, my palms are sweating, my heart's racing,

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Speaker 1: my eyes are dilated. It's it's always so intriguing to

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Speaker 1: me of how people can perceive different levels of danger

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Speaker 1: or fear so radically different. When you think, you know,

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Speaker 1: this is something that's hitting on all of our natural

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Speaker 1: instincts for fight or flight. What what divides us? What

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Speaker 1: makes this person to rely immune to that and the

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Speaker 1: other person a complete, you know, melting stick of butter

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Speaker 1: in these situations? Right? Yeah, that's exactly right that you

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Speaker 1: know this idea, the emotion of fear is something that

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Speaker 1: we all experience. But when you start getting into the

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Speaker 1: nitty gritty of what it is for each person. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's so different. You know, variation is the norm, and

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Speaker 1: that's what I love about it because you know, you

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Speaker 1: can take this same stimulus a spider or a horror

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Speaker 1: movie and see such different reactions, and those differences are

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Speaker 1: reflecting you know, the individual's past experiences. UM. And there

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Speaker 1: are there is a genetic component, so um. You know,

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Speaker 1: some people are more predisposed to be more what's called

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Speaker 1: stress sensitive, so things may land a little bit harder

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Speaker 1: and um and cause a bigger splash in their um,

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Speaker 1: their systems, so to speak, and others it may just

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of roll off their back. Um. And

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Speaker 1: and it does reflect their their background and culture. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're afraid of different things in the US than in

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Speaker 1: in Japan or parts of South America. So um, that's

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Speaker 1: going to come into play and uh and the time

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Speaker 1: and you know, in place and just what's happening right

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Speaker 1: here right now. Uh, that's going to shape the way

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Speaker 1: that we respond in this situations. UM. For example, when

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Speaker 1: I was in Japan and I was looking into a

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Speaker 1: lot of uh research about expression and emotion. In Japan,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, there's more of a practice of um of

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Speaker 1: not being so expressive. UM, But that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: people aren't feeling the same kind of intensity uh inside,

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Speaker 1: they just may not be expressing it the same way.

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Speaker 1: So it really takes on so many different um writers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And in this thing that we think about of you know,

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Speaker 1: being universal, is is just verse one that we all

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Speaker 1: likely to get scared. But what's in the ingredients can

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Speaker 1: just very tremendously. Listen to more Coast to Coast a m.

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Speaker 1: Every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am dot com for more