"We can tell ourselves the images on the screen are not real, but emotionally our brain reacts as if they are." "The brain hasn't really adapted to the new technology ," Sparks says. Their palms sweat, their skin temperature drops several degrees, their muscles tense, and their blood pressure spikes. When people watch horrific images, their heartbeat increases as much as 15 beats per minute, Sparks says. You’re not really in danger when the violence is on a screen. Is the fear you feel when you watch someone being chased by an axe-wielding murderer any different from the fear you might feel if you were actually being chased by an axe-wielding murderer? But if their attraction is powerful, Cantor says, so is their impact. "Most people like to experience pleasant emotions."ĭefenders of these movies may say they're just harmless entertainment. "No doubt, there's something really powerful that brings people to watch these things, because it's not logical," says Joanne Cantor, PhD, director of the Center for Communication Research at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Behavioral researchers even coined a phrase for it: the "horror paradox." If you're not a horror movie fan, you may be puzzled about why some people love watching such movies. Halloween is nigh, and along with the parade of adorable elves and fairies knocking on your door come some more disturbing phenomena: scary haunted houses, wild parties and, perhaps most jarringly, a new onslaught of ghastly horror films.
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