Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: luring vog obamb here on the menu of what's scary
Speaker 1: these days, there are many threats to choose, from mass
Speaker 1: shootings and uncertain political and economic future, nuclear war spiders.
Speaker 1: So it begs the question why would anyone want more?
Speaker 1: Why do people, in fact pay money to be scared
Speaker 1: when there's already enough frightening stuff served up daily? But
Speaker 1: that's exactly what tons of people do. We Horror fans
Speaker 1: seek out horror movies, scary books, and haunted houses. We
Speaker 1: pay to consume fear, and selling fear is an increasingly
Speaker 1: profitable pursuit. For instance, the number of horror movies released
Speaker 1: in only seven sixty two. The top twenty horror films
Speaker 1: of seventeen, including Stephen King's It Sold, combined a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million tickets and grossed more than nine twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars. But this is nothing new. Since nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: horror movies have taken more than twenty four billion dollars
Speaker 1: of our hard earned money at the box office, adjusting
Speaker 1: for inflation. It's a big business and the haunted house industry,
Speaker 1: and yes we can call it an industry now is
Speaker 1: also capitalizing. It grossed more than three hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: Amusement parks another place to find heart racing attractions that
Speaker 1: scare so many annually serve three hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: million people in North America alone. Of course, this brand
Speaker 1: of fear served up by horror flicks, thrill rides, and
Speaker 1: even haunted houses is a specific and in fact different
Speaker 1: form of fear than what someone feels or deals with
Speaker 1: if they're mugged or chased by wild boars. And that
Speaker 1: is where we can find the answer to today's question,
Speaker 1: why do we do this to ourselves? First, it's important
Speaker 1: to know that there is a competing overload of various
Speaker 1: definitions and associated nuances of fear. Lots of people study it,
Speaker 1: lots of people have opinions. We'll break it down into
Speaker 1: two simple types, capital A anxiety and capital F fear.
Speaker 1: Anxiety is what keeps us up at night. It's often
Speaker 1: experienced as dread, worry, uncertainty, nervousness, apprehension, and specifically, it
Speaker 1: focuses the mind on possible future events that might happen
Speaker 1: but have not happened yet, anything from nuclear war or
Speaker 1: the end of democracy, to the injury or death of
Speaker 1: loved ones, a terrible break up, the loss of finances, ETCETERA.
Speaker 1: Fear that is fright, horror, terror, or panic is the
Speaker 1: much more straightforward frenemy. It derives from what is right
Speaker 1: in front of us, right now, an immediate threat to
Speaker 1: our safety. This could be standing in front of a
Speaker 1: crowd for a speech, an unfriendly dog running straight for us,
Speaker 1: or that moment when we accidentally walk through a spider web.
Speaker 1: Not anxiety about that possibly happening, but that actually happening.
Speaker 1: It causes signal aficant near instantaneous fight or flight biological
Speaker 1: changes in US. But further, in attempting to understand why
Speaker 1: someone would want to experience something like fear, we also
Speaker 1: need to acknowledge that it contains a subcategory which brings
Speaker 1: about similar symptoms, but with mostly enjoyable outcomes. Margie Key
Speaker 1: is a sociologist who studies fear and the author of
Speaker 1: the Book's Scream. She and her colleague Greg Siegel, PhD,
Speaker 1: the director for the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at the University
Speaker 1: of Pittsburgh, have come up with an academic description for
Speaker 1: this subcategory, voluntary engagement with negative high arousal stimuli, or
Speaker 1: in other words, going to a scary movie or haunted
Speaker 1: house and while allowing ourselves to feel the biological thrills
Speaker 1: of being scared. As part of this, the overall experience
Speaker 1: can lead to deeper meaning in our lives. In some cases,
Speaker 1: it can even provide some therapeutic value for those experiencing anxiety.
Speaker 1: Care says that experiencing fund scary can give us a
Speaker 1: set of mastery over it that can feel very gratifying.
Speaker 1: Here's a chance to feel like we've got it all
Speaker 1: within our control. Here's how it works. Step one, we
Speaker 1: choose to experience a scary activity. This step, perhaps the
Speaker 1: most important, frames our entire experience. By exhibiting agency to
Speaker 1: face something scary, we're acknowledging that we are in control
Speaker 1: of it. We also realize the safety inherent in this
Speaker 1: that if we walk into a haunted house, we're not
Speaker 1: going to be murdered. Not really right. Step two, something
Speaker 1: unexpected startles or unsettles us alike in the Blair Witch Project,
Speaker 1: when someone is standing in a very dark corner, or
Speaker 1: the Shining, when ghostly twins demand that we come play
Speaker 1: with them forever, end ever, or in any number of
Speaker 1: slasher flicks when the protagonist realizes that the killer's calls
Speaker 1: are coming from inside the house. The original reference to
Speaker 1: that maybe when a stranger calls. By the way, good trivia.
Speaker 1: At any rate, we're on edge, which brings us two
Speaker 1: step three. We exp variance fight or flight. Danger stimuli
Speaker 1: is received by our brain and our sympathetic nervous system
Speaker 1: kicks into gear. This is what kept the cave people
Speaker 1: away from sabertoothed lions. Our bodies are flooded with adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin,
Speaker 1: and endorphins. Our heart rate, blood pressure in breathing increase,
Speaker 1: We sweat, we get goose bumps. In some cases, we
Speaker 1: may scream, involuntarily jump or run for the hills. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: it's all completely natural. Care says. This is the pedal
Speaker 1: to the metal and all systems go, but in a
Speaker 1: safe environment, one in which we choose to experience. It's
Speaker 1: important to note that this is much different than facing
Speaker 1: real danger, and that's what makes it fun. Care said,
Speaker 1: even deciding to do scary, this is the protective frame
Speaker 1: we've created for ourselves in our mind. We are being
Speaker 1: open to engage with this material and suspend our disbelief.
Speaker 1: It creates a different experience than if we were, say,
Speaker 1: mugged at random. Our framing of the situation is then
Speaker 1: going to be with that. In the context, screams mean
Speaker 1: fun and not fear, which leads us to Step four.
Speaker 1: We experience satisfaction on a biological level. Our parasympathetic nervous
Speaker 1: system kicks in and it brings everything back down to
Speaker 1: normal heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, sweating, and that urge
Speaker 1: to run far, far away. Care said, this can feel
Speaker 1: very relaxing. It's the rest and digest period. We're safe.
Speaker 1: We can sit with that and reap the benefits. So
Speaker 1: step five. Those benefits we share in the experience and
Speaker 1: build relationships. Care said of hunted house, horror movie, and
Speaker 1: roller coaster excursions. These experiences are often linked with friends
Speaker 1: and family. We attend with them. We're building strong bonds
Speaker 1: and a shared camaraderie that in itself can be really gratifying.
Speaker 1: It's the stuff that nostalgia is built from. So why
Speaker 1: do we choose to experience certain scary things? The rush, sure,
Speaker 1: but also to make our lives feel more meaningful, to
Speaker 1: make memories. Care also notes that a common therapy for
Speaker 1: those who experience anxiety, that other brand of fear that
Speaker 1: consumes many of us these days, is to do something
Speaker 1: scary enough but ultimately safe, to activate your sympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 1: She said. It's a physical sensation that feels good. It
Speaker 1: gives you a mental pause. You become grounded in your body,
Speaker 1: fully distracted by something in your environment, and ultimately you
Speaker 1: realize that you survived something. You set a challenge and
Speaker 1: you survived, which brings gratification. These days will take all
Speaker 1: the help we can get. So what's your favorite scary movie?
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jamie Allen and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: satisfying topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com