Horror Movie Research Study
I found this interesting.. so i nosed around as usual.. and there have been several studies like this. neato !
originally posted on horror-movies.ca
I get some pretty interesting stuff in my inbox. Sometimes its from whack jobs who are threatening me and other times it is really unique and interesting. Today I woke up to an email from a gentleman who asked for the following assistance from me… and I wanted to pose it to you.
I have a laboratory to study the fear and disgust of people watching horror movies. Electroencephalography, body temperature, cortisol levels before and after the experiment, the heart beats, eyes movement, galvanic skin resistance (GSR)… And now, realise that it’s true and I’ve got the green light of my university ethics committee. Now, the question : which movies do you think should scare the hell out of my subjects (between 18 and 35 years old)?
So if you were doing a University Research Study on Horror Films what films do you think would be good ones to really gauge the response and stimulus of people watching them? Post your answers in the comments and I will pass them along. It is probably worth while to post why as well.
Science Daily has a nifty article too as well as some related topics.
Why Do People Love Horror Movies? They Enjoy Being Scared
ScienceDaily (July 31, 2007) — A bedrock assumption in theories that explain and predict human behavior is people’s motivation to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. How can this be reconciled with the decision to engage in experiences known to elicit negative feelings, such as horror movies” It certainly seems counter intuitive that so many people would voluntarily immerse themselves in almost two hours of fear, disgust and terror. “Why do people pay for this?” “How is this enjoyable?”
Investigators generally use one of two theories to explain why people like horror movies. The first is that the person is not actually afraid, but excited by the movie. The second explanation is that they are willing to endure the terror in order to enjoy a euphoric sense of relief at the end. But, a new study by Eduardo Andrade (University of California, Berkeley) and Joel B. Cohen (University of Florida) appearing in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research argues that neither of these theories is correct.
“We believe that a reevaluation of the two dominant explanations for people’s willingness to consume “negative” experiences (both of which assume that people can not experience negative and positive emotions simultaneously) is in order,” explain Andrade and Cohen in their study.
They continue: “The assumption of people’s inability to experience positive and negative affect at the same time is incorrect.”
In other words, the authors argue that horror movie viewers are happy to be unhappy. This novel approach to emotion reveals that people experience both negative and positive emotions simultaneously — people may actually enjoy being scared, not just relief when the threat is removed. As the authors put it, “the most pleasant moments of a particular event may also be the most fearful.”
Andrade and Cohen developed and utilize a new methodology to track negative and positive feelings at the same time. Their method could apply to other experiences that seem to elicit terror, risk, or disgust, such as extreme sports.
“When individuals who typically choose to avoid the stimuli were embedded in a protective frame of mind, such that there was sufficient psychological disengagement or detachment, they experienced positive feelings while still experiencing fearfulness,” the authors explain.
Reference: Eduardo B. Andrade and Joel B. Cohen. “On the Consumption of Negative Feelings” Journal of Consumer Research: August 2007.
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I love the fact that they found that people can feel fear and happy at the same time. I also love that this is a new methodology. It seems like this would have been pretty easy if they had asked me I would have told them I enjoyed both at the same time. Not the relief that the situation is over. In fact I like things that scare me so bad that I carry it with me for days. See damn doctors think they know so much they can’t entertain the idea that we enjoy both.