Saturday, 9 February 2013

Why people love horror movies

Some people absolutely love horror movies and can't get enough of them. They can sit there and watch them over and over. Most horror movie fans have all the DVD collections in their house and could sit there for days watching them.
Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead watching a scary movie by myself. They freak me out, leaving me unsettled for days thinking the same paranormal events are happening to me.

According to Glenn Sparks, Ph.D, a professor and associate head of the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, one reason for the appeal is how you feel after the movie. This is called the excitation transfer process. Sparks’s research found that when people watch frightening films, their heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases.

Investigators generally use one of two theories to explain why people like horror movies. The first is that the person is not actually afraid, but excited by the movie. The second explanation is that they are willing to endure the terror in order to enjoy a euphoric sense of relief at the end. But, a new study by Eduardo Andrade (University of California, Berkeley) and Joel B. Cohen (University of Florida) appearing in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research argues that neither of these theories is correct.

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