Dr. Coltan Scrivner

So they do it because it's scary and it feels good to be afraid sometimes.

That's true for some people.

It's why we pay money to go on roller coasters or go skydiving or bungee jumping.

For some people, it's why they go to haunted houses or watch horror movies.

But really, you don't get as big of an adrenaline rush from, say, watching a horror movie.

Not nearly as big as you would from things like going on a roller coaster or skydiving or bungee jumping.

Those are much more high adrenaline activities.

They're actually much more attractive to people who want the adrenaline rush.

And so when I first started researching this, I was not terribly convinced by the argument that it was just about adrenaline.

And so I actually went to some haunted attractions and I found that there are at least three sort of broad types of people, three things that you might get out of this, right?

One of them is an adrenaline rush.

Some people, especially younger people, especially young young men, young boys, teenagers will go do scary things because it feels good to get that adrenaline high without being in too much physical danger.

Right.

That's some of it.

But that actually wasn't even a majority of the people who were there.

Another huge group.

So we call those the adrenaline junkies.

Right.

But another huge group of people told us that they were actually very afraid during the haunted house, and they tend to be very afraid when they engage in recreational fear in general.

So if they watch a scary movie, they tend to be very afraid of it.