Why We Enjoy Fear
By Briana Skappel
I am on a path through the dark woods. In the moonlight, all I can see are the outlines of trees and the dirt trail I’m following. I hear the hiss of a smoke machine, and suddenly the path gets foggy. I lose what little vision I had, and slow down to try to see through the fog. Suddenly, a goat-headed creature blocks my path, they lurch forward, I scream. The satanic goat-man is going to take me, this is how I die!... Wait, this is a haunted house, I paid for this. The satanic goat fades back into the trees as I gather myself. For a second there, I was legitimately scared. In that split second, I would not have described myself as ‘having a good time.’ But after I calm down, I can’t help but admit that was a good one and return to enjoying the experience. I just had fun by being scared.
Why do I find being scared fun?
As it turns out, given the long lines of people waiting to enter the haunted houses, or people packing the theater for a scary movie with me, I am not alone in self-induced terror. People partake in these scary activities willingly and find it to be exhilarating. But why? Well, when it comes to scary movies or haunted houses, we know that it is not real, and trust that we are safe. This is important when processing an event that causes us stress, triggering our fight or flight response.
When we encounter an event, our brains interpret whether or not we are in danger and then use further reasoning and decide how to react, known as high road emotional processing. High road emotional processing works by sending visual information to the sensory cortex, where reasoning is used to determine safety. The information and your decision are then sent to your amygdala, the emotional center of your brain, responsible for the fight or flight response. You see something scary and possibly dangerous, you react emotionally, you think about it, then decide to fight, run, or stay because there is no danger. When that goat-man suddenly jumped in my way, I interpreted that as danger and screamed, until further processing reminded me that I was in a haunted house, and I should have expected that. I decided I was safe and there was no need to run for my life or fight the creature and carried on.
While avoiding the fight or flight response, your body still releases a wave of neurotransmitters and hormones to prime your body to fight or run. The two main chemicals released during these events are epinephrine and dopamine. You may better know epinephrine as adrenaline, a hormone released into the bloodstream that provides energy to major muscles needed to respond to a threat. This includes the heart, where adrenaline increases your heart rate to move more blood to your muscles, resulting in the feeling of your heart beating out of your chest. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter found in the brain that is responsible for that ‘feel-good’ feeling and motivating you to seek things that feel good. So, after the release of these chemicals in response to the scare, you now get to experience the rush of adrenaline (epinephrine) as a positive experience. The simultaneous release of dopamine in your brain causes pleasure and motivates you to do it again, as you have interpreted the scare as enjoyable. By the time you have gotten through the movie or haunted house, you have released enough adrenaline and dopamine to solidify ‘that was fun, and I should do it again.' You remember the experience as a great time, instead of terrifying and painful, and go back to subject yourself to the fear again next year. So, while the scare may be painful at first, you may learn to enjoy it.
References
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Feltman, R. (2016, May 10). The science of fear: Why do I like being scared? The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/05/10/the-science-of-fear-why-do-i-like-being-scared/
Psychology Today. (n.d.) Dopamine. Retrieved October 6, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dopamine
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