Halloween: Why do we love playing with fear so much?

This article was originally published in October 2020.

Why are there so many people I like horror films? Why do others enjoy telling scary stories or visiting haunted houses in theme parks?

Just days before Halloween, a Danish study published by the US Association for Psychological Science reveals the reasons.

He argues that horror entertains us when it provokes a physical reaction in us, measured by changes in heart rate. But this fun ends when the fear becomes too strong to overcome us.

This fine line between fun and unpleasant experience can vary from person to person.

Researchers took 110 volunteers to a haunted house that is part of a theme park in Vella, Denmark. They were called the “Horror Investigation Team.” They equipped each participant with a heart rate monitor that recorded data in real time as they walked around the attraction.

With nearly 50 rooms, the haunted house provided an immersive and intimate horror experience. A variety of scare tactics were used to scare guests, including the sudden appearance of zombies and other monstrous abominations.

The researchers also studied the participants in real time using closed-loop monitors. This allowed them to make first-hand observations. Independent programmers then analyzed the behavior and reactions of the volunteers.

After the experience, participants rated their level of fear and pleasure. By comparing these self-reported experiences with data from heart rate monitors and surveillance cameras, the researchers were able to identify fear and pleasure elements of drive at the subjective, behavioral and physiological levels.

“By exploring how people derive pleasure from fear, we found that there appears to be a sweet spot where pleasure is enhanced. “Our study provides some of the first empirical evidence on the relationship between fear, pleasure and physical arousal in recreational forms of fear,” says Mark Malmdorf Andersen, a researcher at the Center for Connecting Minds at Aarhus University and lead author of the paper.

“If people aren’t very scared, they don’t get as much pleasure from attraction, and the same thing happens if they’re too scared. On the contrary, it seems that a fair amount of fear is necessary for maximum pleasure,” he adds.