How many of you have watched a horror movie this month, or decorated your lawn with

skeletons and zombies, or visited a haunted corn maze?

October may be the month that our fixation on things ghoulish, grisly, and scary reaches

a peak, but for many people a fascination with the darker side of life isn't limited

to Halloween. Some of us love being scared out of our wits all year long. There are a dozen

Friday the 13th movies, the Scream franchise released its sixth film this year, and a list

of the top 25 podcasts in the U.S. include shows called crime junkie, morbid, and my favorite

murder. Clearly, there's a big appetite out there for horror, true crime, and other types of

terrifying entertainment. So why is that? Why do we love to scare ourselves silly? Are there

certain personality traits that people who are drawn to horror, true crime,

and other scary genres share? And are those people onto something? Could watching horror movies

be good for our mental health? Can scary entertainment improve our well-being and leave us

better equipped to handle real-life challenges? Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American

Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.

I'm Kim Mills. My guest today is Dr. Colton Scrivener, a behavioral scientist at the

Recreational Fear Lab at Urhus University

in Denmark and a research project manager at Arizona State University.

He studies the psychological underpinnings of our fascination with the darker side of life,

including horror, true crime, and all types of scary play.

He's also interested in how morbid curiosity relates to personality and mental health.

Dr. Scrivener has published research on morbid curiosity and scary play in scientific journals,

including psychological science and nature scientific reports,

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