a Q&A with psychology prof on fear as fun
By SARA DONNELLY | June 21, 2006
Is it normal to want to scare people? And why do we pay to be scared? Bruce Thompson, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern Maine, says fear can be fun, unless you get weird about it.
Are these haunted mansion guys ok?
Anyone who feels empowerment because they can affect people’s feelings and attitudes is going to feel very gratified by that. But it can go both ways — gang behavior, rioting, often stems from this belief [of power linked with anonymity].
Ok, so it’s a blast for them. But why do we subject ourselves to being scared?
There’s something that’s inherently reinforcing about being scared: it’s fun. When you’re put into a fearful situation there’s almost a euphoric feeling when you get through the danger. When you come out of the haunted house, of course you were not really in danger. But it’s the same feeling people have when they survive car accidents or there’s this really terrible moment on an airplane. People describe this reverse effect where they go into this euphoric state as a reaction to “surviving” something. That’s just part of the thrill of carnival rides, haunted houses, things like that.
What happens to our brains when we get scared?
When you experience fear your body goes into a sympathetic nervous system reaction. The sympathetic nervous system is the fight or flight response. Physiologically, what your body is doing when you are terribly scared is preparing to fight for your life or to run away. So there’s adrenaline, cortisol, lots of stress hormones in your body that are spiking in their level of activation. That again can cause chemical changes in your nervous system and brain that are oftentimes associated with a thrill. And when you’re really stressed out your endorphin levels go up and that creates an effect that chemically resembles morphine, or any other opiate.
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Lifestyle Features
, Health and Fitness, Stress, University of Southern Maine
