Johnson County receives grant to improve community transportation. Iowa City School District community members protest over racial slurs in student video. Regents ask UI employees to voluntarily confirm vaccination status, exemptions.
UI grad written play Smile Medicine coming to E. Mabie stage. Riverside members share hopes for new theater before occupancy becomes official. How, Now, to Care? Mic Check Poetry Fest to host three days of spoken word poetry.
Piano Sundays are returning to the Old Capitol Museum. Close Menu. RSS Feed. Submit Search. The horror, the horror — why so popular? In these cases, the human typically has superpowers—Hannibal Lector seems to able to read minds and pull off impossible escapes, while Michael Myers can disappear and often returns after being shot, beheaded, or set on fire in the previous film. No matter what the monster looks like, many argue it must have one key characteristic, which distinguishes it from monsters of other genres such as sci-fi.
That said, there are many scary films— The Blair Witch Project or The Haunting , for example—which never clearly establish that there is a monster, but are commonly considered part of the genre. But not everyone enjoys every horror film, which suggests other factors are at work.
We could enjoy rooting for the protagonists as they battle the monster, Turvey said. This creates a mystery that draws us in, Turvey said. The fear can also bring people closer together, he added. Frankenstein , which Turvey requires his students to read because it is so important and which is years old this year, gets at the power of science to alter nature in a fundamental way, while the newer movie Get Out tackles real social and racial fears.
One thing horror aficionados complain about is overuse of the startle response often called a jump scare , according to Turvey. While you may still feel just as anxious as before, several aspects of the experience have changed to give you more control.
Even in the most immersive narrative , people can distinguish between reality and fiction. The fact that you now feel anxious about something fictional can feel less consequential than feeling anxious about something real. Covering your eyes, watching with the lights on or with a friend, or turning the volume down can all make the experience of a horror film feel less scary or, for the real thrill-seekers, the opposite can make it feel scarier.
While there are several therapeutically effective techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy that help control anxiety, the ability to regulate anxiety with simple techniques like covering your eyes or turning on the lights is unique to anxiety experienced in fiction.
The ability to up-regulate or down-regulate arousal during frightening experiences is key to enjoying the experience. For example, some colleagues and I recently published a study about the physiology, behavior, and attitudes of people who go to haunted attractions.
This converges with earlier work showing that haunted-house visitors actively use a range of cognitive and emotional strategies to regulate their fear. By transferring your anxiety to the screen, you have much more control over how much it impacts you.
One problem that people with anxiety face is social acceptability. Expression of high anxiety comes with a stigma in the real world. This can lead to maladaptive coping behaviors, such as blocking the outward expression of emotions, that tend to worsen anxiety.
However, in a fictional world of horrors, overt expression of your emotions—even screaming your lungs out—is expected. This is where the director or writer hopes to instill a feeling of unease and suspense—keeping you on your toes as your imagination takes over and tries to predict what will happen before it catches you off-guard. For people experiencing anxiety, this mindset might come naturally, and can make the experience feel more potent.
Though overactivation of this type of thinking in the real world can have negative consequences, it is expected to happen in the fictional world of horror. You may have heard that Bill Gates has been informally diagnosed with it. So, after the fact, has Bobby Fischer, obsessive and unable There are a number of reasons why someone who is feeling anxious might find reprieve in horror.
It can provide a distraction from anxiety in the real world, clarity when the source of your anxiety is unidentifiable, and control over your anxiety when you feel like you have none.
While these factors may help you deal with your anxiety in the moment, does it all go away once the movie or the book ends? Horror fiction provides a sort of cognitive simulation in which people can engage with frightening phenomena in a safe setting. In the cognitive playground of fictional horror, people can learn what different types of scary situations look and feel like. Through engaging with the fictional world, people can practice emotional and behavioral strategies that might generalize to other kinds of stressful or fearful situations.
Though this has not been directly tested, some evidence suggests that it might be occurring. For example, horror fans seemed to be more psychologically resilient to the horrors of , even after controlling for a variety of personality traits. Someone who hates horror movies is likely not going to benefit from watching them, and those who love horror may benefit the most.
Coltan Scrivner is a Ph.
0コメント