A Study on Fear — Part One: Why is it sought?
An analysis on why humans seek fear
Premise: not everyone is afraid of horror content, but for the sake of simplicity, I will here refer to “horror media” as media which strike fear, and to the interest in them as in the interest of experiencing fear. Also, nothing that follows keeps into consideration or analyses phobias, which are a significantly different kind of fear in which we won’t delve into this article.
I’ve always been deeply afraid of any kind of horror and gore, up to being unable to sleep for days or weeks and significantly negatively affecting my mood and my life. Fear never left me with a positive aftertaste, nor a good memory. So, I never understood why so many people are attracted to horror media, nor how to explain exactly why they have such an overwhelming effect on me.
There, my journey of discovery began. Why do people seek horror, and why can’t I stand it? And moreover, what is fear exactly? And what triggers it?
What follows is a summary of my research on the topic, which does not aim to be a full and comprehensive article on fear, but simply a way to share fragments of my findings.
Why is Fear sought?
The psychologist Marvin Zuckerman, as well as other of his colleagues, define one of the core human traits that of seeking sensations, the “need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experience and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experience.” The sensation seeking trait is common to all human beings, but it widely ranges from person to person. It would be for that reason then that there are people who enjoy horror media and those who cannot bear them, which is to say those who have a high sensation seeking and those who have a low sensation seeking.
Yet, Zuckerman’s researches do not explain why horrors specifically and not other genres of media. In fact, one might have a high sensation seeking trait but still reject horrors in favour of other strong emotion-inducing media such as tragedies. But to be fair, his works had no aims in that regard – his study was solely on the sensation seeking trait per se, and we have therefore to continue our research elsewhere.
One of the reasons lies in how wide the horror genre can be thanks to the fear of the unknown, which we will focus on when trying to define what makes us afraid. But the most important element for our current analysis is the specific biological reaction to fear.
Fear triggers what is known as the “fight or flight response”, which is a situation in which our body is in extremely high alert and significantly raises the adrenaline levels. This kind of sensation is not too different from that of extreme sports, but in horror media we can feel this sensation in a completely safe environment.
True fear, meaning real danger in an unsafe zone, is undesirable – that is, for the wide majority of people. A real danger can leave us scarred for life, leaving us with traumas. But in a safe environment, that is not the case – theoretically.
Fear easily triggers shortness of breath and increased heartbeat, but the more real it becomes, the more it can trigger other symptoms which are person-dependent, such as chest pain, strong nausea, heavy trembling, and instances of psychosomatization. When those symptoms become too strong, it means that the detachment from the content is not sufficient for our brain, and the body is reacting in a way too similar to that of a real danger in an unsafe zone. This can therefore lead to the same consequences of that real and unsafe danger, and explain why certain people – such as myself – are substantially unable to consume horror content.
But let us go back to the topic at hand: why do some seek fear?
We have partially answered already through the traits of sensation seeking and the desire to trigger the fight or flight response in a safe environment, but there are also other reasons, which can be summarized as a desire to explore the unknown, a desire to explore oneself, and a usually subconscious desire to train and steel oneself.
The first one – the desire to explore the unknown – is probably the most simple one. As I mentioned before and as we will better explain later, horror media are deeply intertwined with the unknown, and since time immemorial the human race – and not only, actually – has had the unshakable desire to delve into the unknown, to discover it and to make sense of it. We – as conscious living beings – have always been and always will be fatally attracted by the unknown, in a way that defies – or maybe even marries – fear.
“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.” — James Stephen
In fact, studies – such as Marvin Zuckerman’s ones – have shown how the sensation seeking traits towards adrenaline is at its peak in our teenage years, and decays afterwards. That is because before that, we have a blind curiosity, which seeks answers aimlessly, without really realizing the dangers of the world nor really understanding the answers we are presented with. But in our teenage years, we have a better understanding of the world and how to poke it, and there is still so much we do not understand and that we can tackle without a fully developed instinct of conservation, thus bringing us into pushing the boundaries of the unknown and of our fears. While after that, as years passes, we start to be more and more content with not exploring the dangers of some unknowns as we develop a stronger and stronger instinct and desire of conservation, from which come harder to push self-defined limits and boundaries. We don’t feel the desire to push ourselves into the unknown if we are not used to doing so and to confront fear, which explains why some adults – although being able to consume horror media without strong repercussions – have no desire to do so if they haven’t been exposed to them in their younger years. These studies and considerations would bring us into questioning the age restrictions system when it comes to fear-inducing media, but that is not the scope of this article.
But this discussion brings us to the second and to the third additional reasons to seek fear: the desire to explore oneself and the desire to train and steel oneself.
Delving into the unknown and into fears reveals us what it is that we don’t know and what it is that we fear. It shows us aspects of ourselves that we were not aware of – or not completely, at least.
Once we are aware of our fears – or of some of them – we move into pushing the boundaries. We start to face them and to get used to some of them, allowing us to delve even further in. But this might even go beyond that: depending on the content of the horror media, it can even be a form of mental training for real life dangers, allowing us to better react to them in an unsafe environment. Moreover, facing fears and pushing boundaries might even help in dealing with and in exorcizing some past traumas – although it is a path to tread very carefully, as the opposite might also happen.
“We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.” — Stephen King
What makes us afraid?
“Fear is deeply personal. What does not scare you… will terrify others.” — Backlog Baldie
Everyone is afraid of different things, yet there are some general techniques that are used to achieve fear. The most important ones are the unknown and the disempowerment, which can be strengthened by additional aspects.
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” — H. P. Lovecraft
When we are faced with something we do not understand or cannot comprehend, we are afraid, especially if the context is enough to make us realize that there is danger. This is due to multiple reasons, but mostly because due to the contextual negative situation, the human mind will automatically think of the worst possible outcome, therefore fueling each individual with their own fears. The unknown is a wildcard, which makes the viewer do the work of crafting their own fear. This way, as long as the context can push the sensation of danger, it will be the human mind on its own that will do the trick and find the most personal and deep fear of an individual that will make somewhat sense for the unknown situation at hand.
But if we can face the unknown, then it is less scary. Or rather, if there is no danger, then we have no reason to be afraid; we can explore the unknown and discover it safely. Therefore, the disempowerment is required.
Either our tools of self-defense have to be taken away, or they have to be insufficient against the threat we are facing. Disempowerment is so powerful that it can break us even when facing the known, even when we are fully aware of what we are up against. If we have no choice but to fight and fail, no choice but to live through something that we cannot overpower nor control, then we feel… well, each individual copes with disempowerment differently, and some may even fully manage it and accept that there is nothing they can do. But the acceptance of being powerless is much harder when facing the unknown.
Therefore, one way or another, the two synergize and call for each other, and they’re fundamental in building up tension and fear.
There are certain elements which automatically make us face the unknown and feel disempowered at the same time, such as darkness, delving into the abysses of the sea or of space in a vulnerable craft, and the supernatural.
In darkness, we are unaware of what surrounds us and we have no way to fully feel safe and protected; any moment something might attack us in a way that we cannot anticipate nor react to. It doesn’t matter how prepared or armed we are: we cannot defend ourselves against an unknown which we cannot see coming.
The abysses of the sea or of space follow the same idea, but pushed to the limit: it’s not only us who are vulnerable, but even the craft we travel in, which we have up to no power in defending. Anything might attack our vessel at any time, and there’s nothing we could do to save ourselves.
In both the darkness and the abysses, the anticipation itself of a possible attact builds up tension and terror, without giving a moment of respite even when nothing is happening, which leads to paranoia.
As for the supernatural, it directly ties into the concept of the unknown. An unknown so unknown that we automatically feel disempowered by the fact itself that we have no idea how to fight it and how to defend from it.
Yet, there are many other techniques to strike fear, but which are more specific. For instance, the cold is something that we know of and yet its disempowerment is so powerful as to be capable of deeply terrorizing us if exposed correctly.
Another example is instances of human jugdment and pressure, which would make us delve into the specifics of psychological horrors, but alas, that is not the topic of this article.
“L’enfer, c’est les autres.” (“Hell is other people.”) — Jean-Paul Sartre