The Relationship Between Fear and Fun
Post by Anastasia Sares
What's the science?
We usually think of fear as a purely negative emotion to be avoided at all costs, but people often put themselves in fearful situations intentionally, for fun. A child who initiates a game of chase with a caregiver and an adult watching a horror film are both examples of participating in this kind of behavior. However, this thrill is difficult to measure in a laboratory. This week in Psychological Science, Andersen and colleagues showed that fear and enjoyment coexist in a haunted-house experience and that there is a “sweet spot” of maximum enjoyment for each individual when the right level of fear is reached.
How did they do it?
Instead of trying to measure fear and pleasure in a laboratory experiment, the authors gathered their data directly at a haunted-house attraction. Participants were visitors to the attraction that agreed to take part in the study. Heart-rate monitors were attached to participants during the experience and they filled out questionnaires before and after. They also agreed to be videotaped, and independent raters later reviewed the videos to analyze them for signs of surprise, fear, and enjoyment. The heart rate data was split into different frequency bands using low-pass and band-pass filters. These reflected large-scale changes (for example a rise and fall in heart rate over the course of 10+ seconds) and small-scale changes (changes that happened over the course of fewer than 10 seconds). Both large- and small-scale fluctuations in heart rate were compared with the participants’ fear and enjoyment ratings on the questionnaires.
What did they find?
In the questionnaires, participants rated both their fear and enjoyment for three separate jump-scare events and their overall fear and enjoyment for the entire experience. The relationship between fear and enjoyment had an inverted-U shape, with enjoyment peaking when fear was not too little and not too much. The inverted-U shape found in this experiment is also common to other enjoyment- or engagement-related phenomena, like curiosity and music enjoyment. Large-scale fluctuations in heart rate were related to fear: the more fluctuation, the more fear. However, the small-scale fluctuations in heart rate had an inverted-U shape to the enjoyment ratings, indicating that these small-scale fluctuations were related to enjoyment.
What's the impact?
The authors suggest that fear-seeking is a form of play. In other words, it helps us to simulate dangerous situations, learn how to manage our emotions, and react accordingly. This study also demonstrates the value of studies that are performed in a naturalistic environment. Control and consistency are important in experimentation, but sometimes we can gain valuable insights from studies conducted in more naturalistic environments that mimic real-life experiences.
Andersen et al. Playing with fear: A field study in recreational horror. Psychological Science (2020). Access the original scientific publication here.