Chapter 1: What is the significance of morbid curiosity?
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman. Dax just farted. Shut up. You don't know anything about farts. And no, I didn't.
And nor did our guest, Colton Scribner. Colton is an author and a psychologist. He is an internationally recognized expert on morbid curiosity and the psychology of horror and true crime. He has a very fascinating book called Morbidly Curious. A scientist explains why we can't look away. This is great. Why do guys like MMA? Why do women like true crime? We get all the answers. It's
Pretty interesting. All of it's interesting. Humans draw to morbid stuff. Yes. So that we can protect ourselves ultimately. It has a good, there's a good reason. We're just so fragile. We're so scared. Please enjoy Colton Scrivener. Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Audible, for supporting this episode. Armcherry's Audible's Best of 2025 collection is here.
The year's top audiobooks, podcasts, and originals across every genre. Their editors spent countless hours listening and debating to handpick this year's must-listens. If you want to finish the year with something you know is going to hit, check out Audible's Best of 2025 and discover why there's more to imagine when you listen. Go to audible.com slash best of 2025. Colton, how are you?
Are you on a big, long press tour?
Kind of, yeah. So I'm in L.A. until Thursday. I got in yesterday. I had a talk at Orange County Library down in Foothill Ranch. Okay. And then I had NPR this morning. Who? Larry Mantle? It was All Things Considered. Oh, All Things Considered. Great.
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Chapter 2: How do humans engage with fear and danger?
Caché.
A lot of caché.
Elevated.
Had you been on NPR before?
Yeah, yeah, several times, but not in studio, because I live in the Ozark Mountains. There's not really a good NPR studio over there. Yeah, how close to the lakes? I have Beaver Lake and Table Rock surrounding where I live. So I live in a little Victorian town, and the Ozark's like a little travel destination town. And you're hosting a zombie festival there? I did last Saturday. It was fantastic.
Tell me, how many zombies showed up? I have to ask the police. They give me these, like, magical estimates. Last year, I said, how many people do you think came? And they're like, oh, probably 20,000. What? Wow, that's awesome, though. It probably is $15,000, though. Really? Yeah. Do they all buy tickets? No, it's a free event. It's a free event? You could be getting filthy rich off this.
$10 a pop. Sell merch. You sell merch. What kind of merch, Julia?
Yeah, what does it look like?
We have a shirt this year that has a big, we have a brain buffet. It's a gelatin brain-eating competition. You have to dress as a zombie, eat a big, anatomically-sized gelatin brain, which is a lot harder than you think it is. Wow, yeah. As fast as you can. That's a lot of jello. That's a lot of jello.
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Chapter 3: What are the four domains of morbid curiosity?
Oh, no. Maybe whoever wrote that, their brain weighs- A newborn is 0.8 to 0.9 pounds. Okay. An adult male is 1,350 to 1,400 grams. Adult females, sorry girls, 1,200 to 1,300. No wonder they're so stupid. I've been looking for a reason. It's right here in Black and White. Wow, that's an incredible turnout. And I can't imagine there's accommodations for everyone there. Do people camp?
A little of both. So Eureka is a tourist town. There's about 2,000 people that live there, which I love. Victorian houses and architecture everywhere, kind of like preserved in time. Spooky. America's most haunted hotel there, supposedly.
Okay. And you went there specifically because of that architecture?
I grew up a couple of hours from there. So my parents went there for vacations. We would go sometimes as an adult. When I was in grad school in Chicago, if I would drive down to Oklahoma to visit family for holidays, it's about halfway. Okay. Stay there. After grad school, I was living in the Bay. I was working at Meta as a researcher and I went to Eureka Springs.
This would have been 2023 for New Year's, like 22 into 23. I stayed at this little Airbnb and then behind it was like an old school Victorian bed and breakfast that was for sale. And I thought, I was like, I bet I could run a bed and breakfast.
Whoa.
So I moved. I bet I could run above breakfast. That's a big swing. That's how like almost all of my things, I bet I could do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little naive optimism. Yes. I moved in and kind of renovated, got it going again. It was in pretty good shape, but it needed a few things.
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Chapter 4: How does Coltan's research relate to horror and true crime?
Sure. And then after about a year, I got an innkeeper and I moved to a different house in town.
Okay, great. Yeah. And what was the year like where you were interfacing with all the guests?
It was cool. What I like about Eureka is that it's a small town. I know all my neighbors. It's very homey, artsy little town. But it gets like a million visitors a year for a population of 2,000. That's crazy. Mostly because of the lakes in the summer? People come because there are festivals all summer, all fall, all spring. There are lakes that people come for in the summer.
Lots of good hiking, mountain biking. And people just come to shop. We're missing the boat on Eureka.
And I want to go to the spooky zombie. Brad Pitt has a property there. Brad, invite us. And then you teach at ASU, no?
I don't teach. I'm just a researcher at ASU. Okay, explain that. I have an affiliation with the psychology department there. I'm working on a National Science Foundation grant looking at risk management and how we can use scary play to better plan for risks in the future. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.
Okay, now we're going to start at the beginning. So you grew up kind of by Eureka. Four hours away, actually. Four hours. That's substantial. In Missouri?
Oklahoma. In Oklahoma. Oklahoma.
He's also from Oklahoma. Brad.
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Chapter 5: What reflections are made about Thanksgiving traditions?
Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. Is there a famous Sophia song? I can't think of one. I don't think so. Sophia the giraffe. Do you think most, Sophie, that's Sophie. Oops.
I know.
Do you think most names have songs? Yeah. Wow. That's cool. You've heard your song, right?
Chapter 6: How does the discussion shift to the topic of violence?
A little bit of Monica in my life. A little, I'm not going to sing it. A little bit of Monica in my life. Yeah, Mambo No. 5. Do they say Monica? Uh-huh. Oh, they do. Yeah. I was thinking of a different song. What? You know, it's like, Monica, Monica, I think I want your number, Monica. Oh, but. Is that not it? I don't think so.
Chapter 7: What insights are shared about the nature of curiosity?
Well, that's Gloria. But I like that. Well, you were like, damn, this actually sounds like it could be a hit because it was. Sure. Well, I knew it was a hit, but I didn't think it was my name and I was right. I think I know more, but I have to really think on it. Okay. Well, we already know Mambo No. 5. That's pretty good. That's really good. Yeah. That's more than there are Dax songs. I know.
Yours is tricks.
Chapter 8: How do the hosts discuss the impact of societal norms on behavior?
That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. You got a chair. Oh, I just got a weird fun list. You know, I follow this account on Instagram. I really like it. I'm shocked I haven't forwarded you any. What is it? It's just all data. Oh, wow. And it's all global data. Okay. So this one was... The university's producing the most billionaires. Oh, that's cool. Isn't that kind of interesting?
Yeah, but is it obvious or are there some twists and turns? I mean, it's obvious. What's interesting is this is the world over. Okay. This is every university in the world. Okay. And of the, let's see how long this list is. One, two, three. 9, 8, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 22. And I wonder. No, 21. Are you feeling antsy to read them all? Because like now you know what it's like.
No, I more wanted you to guess. Oh, okay. Out of 21, how many are not American? Oh, are not. Okay. Wow. I can't count it loud. I mean, I was going to let you because that was. A good clue. Yep.
Yeah.
Okay, I think... Big world. It's a big, big world, isn't it? China's a huge country. Over a billion people. And, oh God, okay. Now, what about like undergrad and grad? Because this is tricky because some of these people might have gone to an undergrad in one place and a grad in another. Do you think you're overthinking it? But let me see if it delineates that. I am thinking it through.
I guess it would have to mean everything. Their graduate program, their undergraduate programs, like the school. How many did the school produce? Okay, this is hard because I think most billionaires go to graduate school, most. Okay. And I think they come, a lot of them come here for graduate school. Sure. So I'm going to say six of them are not American. Great guess. Seven. Okay. Okay.
Okay, now what's crazy is how dramatic the difference is, right? So first place, what's your guess? You know. Harvard? Just say it, Harvard. Okay. Harvard has produced 104 billionaires. Third place has produced 38. Wow, yeah. Second place, 69. Great number. Congrats to, I'll give it away, Stanford. I was going to say. Okay, you want to guess three? Yeah, I want to guess. You always get to guess.
Yeah.
MIT. Great. Guess you want to know what number that is? Yeah. That's number five. Okay. So, and what about not Yale? Is that a guess? Oh, my God. Not Yale. You're mean about lists. Oh, am I? I am. I'm fun about them. Okay. I'm sorry. Oh, wait. Ask me again. Not Yale. No, no, no. Not Yale. Okay. Is, Jesus. Okay. Harvard, Stanford, not Yale. What was MIT again? Five? Five. Okay.
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