Short Stuff: Why does it feel good to be scared?

Stuff You Should Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.5 • 82.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2026

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fear is different than being scared, most notably because fear is generally a negative thing and being scared can cause an enjoyable thrill. We'll get into the difference in today's episode.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:02.6	Guaranteed Human.
0:08.2	Hey, and welcome to the short stuff.
0:10.1	I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too, sitting in for day.
0:14.3	And this is stuff you should know.
0:16.4	And we're here to answer a perennial question that everyone wants to know.
0:20.9	Just why in the gosh darn heck do we make ourselves scared on purpose?
0:25.6	Yeah, here, scare me real quick.
0:27.0	Do something.
0:27.4	Let's do a little exercise.
0:30.9	You're starting to look old.
0:33.5	No, no, no.
0:34.4	It's like really scary.
0:35.3	Say boo or something.
0:36.1	Oh, okay.
0:36.6	That's going to scare you more?
0:38.9	Yeah, yeah.
0:39.3	Okay, boo. Oh, my God. Oh, boy, as it turns out, that was really exhilarating. I feel great now. Yeah, well, you overcame a fear, a real threat. Yeah, it is an interesting question, though. And thanks to our old friends at housedeforks.com,
0:54.8	as well as psychology today and the American Brain Foundation, who have all, as well as other
0:59.7	places, looked into that weird question like you were talking about. Like, why would anybody
1:04.2	pay to go into a truly terrifying haunted house or a truly terrifying movie? And like, yeah, we all
1:10.7	know anecdotally or personally why,
	...

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