Why Do We Really Like To Experience Fear?

Scary movies keep getting followers as time goes on. Haunted houses, zombies and scary experiences in general are now more in vogue than ever. And yet, if someone were to ask us why we like to experience fear, we simply cannot explain it.

It’s actually quite confusing why so many of us are fascinated by this kind of thing. It seems like our instinct should be to escape from everything that makes us feel bad, right? So why do we like to feel fear?

The truth is that it is only natural that scary things fascinate us in some way. The mechanisms that cause this are in fact well documented by the scientific community. Understanding the mechanisms mentioned can help us better understand how our thoughts work. In this article we will study why this phenomenon occurs.

We like to experience fear because of brain function

According to various researchers, the reason why we like to experience fear has to do with the way our thoughts work. When we are faced with a potentially dangerous stimulus, our body prepares us to act. In these situations, we secrete certain hormones that cause us to enter the commonly known condition “fight or flight”.

Thanks to this mechanism, our ancestors maximized the chances of survival in the face of all kinds of harmful situations. Substances such as adrenaline or norepinephrine (two of the neurotransmitters involved in fear responses) helped them escape from what could harm them. Although they did not get the chance to escape, these drugs are guaranteed to help them cope with the situation.

Now the problem with this mechanism is that it has not really evolved in the last 10,000 years. Thus, stimuli that we find today are quite different from the Stone Age. Despite this, our bodily response remains the same.

The biggest difference in the way we react is our rational brain. And precisely, in this difference, we can find the reason why so many of us like to experience fear.

The existing disconnect between body and mind

Nowadays, when we are faced with a stimulus that our body sees as dangerous, there is an instantaneous connection between what we think and what we feel.

On the one hand, our hormonal system is activated as if we were to face a potentially harmful situation. On the other hand, in the case of a horror movie or a haunted house, our brain is fully aware that we are not facing real danger.

Thus, unlike what happened to our ancestors, we can enjoy this hormone-producing feeling without actually feeling scared. That way we feel more active, full of energy, but without suffering the consequences of facing a real threat.

In fact, according to various studies, fear-related hormones are very similar to those of happiness. Therefore, many say that after a scary but safe experience, their mood improves significantly. So much so that looking for scary stimuli can be addictive for some.

The relationship between personality and taste to experience fear

Let’s clear up something. The hormones released in the face of a frightening situation are not the only factor involved in this phenomenon. According to various studies , not everyone likes fear in the same way. In fact, there are big individual differences depending on our personalities.

Thus, researchers have discovered that there are several features that correlate with a greater appeal to scary situations. These are the most important:

Openness to experience

Those who love to do different things every day have a greater penchant for scary situations; to a point where they seem to experience fear on a constant basis.

Extroversion

Extroverts need a higher level of external stimulation to feel good. This may explain why they usually like horror movies, haunted houses and similar items much more than introverts.

Empathy

Interestingly, empathetic people usually like to experience fear. This may be because they have a greater ability to process emotions than other people; and therefore seeks to experience more experiences of this type.

In this article, we mentioned several reasons that may explain why we like to experience fear. Keep in mind, however, that there may be many more factors involved. Science still has many questions to answer and many hypotheses to investigate further in this regard. With that said, it is necessary to research more on the subject.

However, it is clear that people all over the world continue to enjoy everything that can give them an “artificial” feeling of fear more and more.