Are you one of those people who enjoy being in front of a TV screen with a horror movie on it, with your heart beating and your skin burning? There is a scientific reason behind the huge popularity of scary movies, death trains in amusement parks, and holidays like Halloween. We asked why some people enjoy fear so much and how it is possible that this emotion gives us pleasure.
Have you ever wondered how it is that crowds of people can't wait to get on death train and in the house of fear and why right films, which are considered the most terrible, achieve so much popularity? The answer lies in the way we the brain they perceive fear and in what way they use it to prepare us for real dangers and uncertain future.
Why do we feel fear?
To understand why so many people enjoys it in of fear and threatens, we first need to know how our brain feels this in the first place they produce and in what way they control ours reaction.
The part of the brain responsible for our fear response is called amygdala. When we encounter a situation that arouses fear in us, it activates it in our body nervous system. When this happens, it starts in us a flash flood of hormones, which leads to one of the most important human instincts: fight or flight or fight or flight.
What if we are not exposed to the threat on direct way or immediately follows it relief? The latest research shows that we will not react to such a situation in the same way as if we found ourselves in actual danger. At that time thalamus- the part of the brain that is responsible for our senses (except smell) and emotions first sends information cerebral cortex, which is responsible for thinking, memory and consciousness. The latter then a threat analyze and thus helps us find out, are we in real danger. If the answer is Yes, body on her reacts instinctively, but if it becomes clear to us that the "threat" to us it won't hurt, fear is followed by an immediate sensation relief.
How are fear and pleasure related?
You are our experts pleasures while watching horror movies and visiting "terrible" devices and houses in amusement parks, they explain to different ways. The first is that we view the stimuli that evoke fear in us as a form games, which we know from early childhood. If you observe small children, you will find that they are constantly searching unknown objects, surprises and moderate risks. This is interpreted by experts as a shape learning, how get used to and to react on unpredictable situations, which everyone encounters in life.
That is why it happened that at the beginning of the pandemic horror viewership soared. Scary movies are supposed to improve ours emotional resilience to uncertain situations, prepared us to navigate through unknown future, while at the same time enabling us to a milder way we feel real emotions - we directed our real fear into reality instead of into reality fiction, which instead of worry and anxiety awakened a pleasant form in us adrenaline.
The last research she did Aarhus University but they showed something else: it exists "sweet spot", where the pleasure that comes from fear, the biggest. This is a stimulus where we are not afraid so much that our body would react to the situation with by instinct fight or flight, but we still feel horror. This point varies from person to person of course differs: some people find it in horror movies, which are considered the scariest, but for others, a visit to a children's house of fear is enough for them. That's why it's important to find out how much fear it still creates in you sweet pleasure and what stimuli you should avoid to avoid.
