![]() They told us they perceived their experiences as a kind of play, supporting our notion of recreational horror as a medium for playing with fear. The heart rate monitors told us about their physiological responses to such events, and the questionnaires allowed us to understand how they felt about it all. ![]() The surveillance footage allowed us to see how guests responded to frightening events, such as a chainsaw-wielding pig-man chasing them down a dark corridor. We mounted surveillance cameras in the house’s scariest rooms, strapped participants with heart rate monitors, and distributed a bunch of questionnaires. In one ambitious research project, led by my colleague Marc Malmdorf Andersen, we set out to investigate the experiences of guests at a very frightening haunted house- Dystopia Haunted House in Denmark. The Recreational Fear Lab conducts investigations to understand the scientifically understudied phenomenon of fear-and why it might actually be good for us. We do lab studies, survey studies, and real-world empirical studies to understand this widespread but scientifically understudied psychological phenomenon. To investigate whether that is indeed the case and why, my colleagues and I have established the Recreational Fear Lab, a research center at Aarhus University, Denmark. ![]() In other words, recreational fear might actually be good for us. When we engage in recreational fear activities specifically, from peek-a-boo to horror movie watching, we play with fear, challenge our limits, and learn about our own physiological and psychological responses to stress. When we play, we learn important things about the physical and social world, and about our own inner world. Playfighting kittens train their ability to hold their own in a hostile encounter, but with little risk and low cost, compared to the real thing. When an organism plays, it learns important skills and develops strategies for survival. One hypothesis is that recreational fear is a form of play behavior, which is widespread in the animal kingdom and ubiquitous among humans. So even though Dodge may be a bad place, we still keep visiting it, at least from the safe distance of play and make-believe. Indeed, most of us never quite lose our peculiar attraction to recreational fear-even if we eschew slasher flicks or dark crime shows brimming with murder, death, and gore. As they grow a little older they get together for horror movie nights, stand patiently in line for roller coasters, and play horror video games. They perform daredevil tricks on playgrounds and race their bikes toward what, from a parent’s perspective, is certain and violent death. They are drawn to scary stories about monsters and witches and ghosts. They get older and take great pleasure in chase play and hide-and-seek. From a very early age, humans love being jump-scared by caregivers in the form of peek-a-boo, and being hurtled into the air (and caught). ![]() Once you start looking for it, you’ll find recreational fear everywhere. So, yes, fear is a feel-bad emotion, but also, and perhaps paradoxically, the engine in a whole range of pleasurable activities and behaviors-which inspire what we can call recreational fear. Fear evolved over millions of years to protect us from danger. Fear tells us to get the hell out of Dodge because Dodge is a bad place. It is certainly true that pure fear doesn’t feel good, but that is the whole point of the emotion. It’s a so-called negative emotion, one that supposedly stands between us and our dreams.
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