Why do we like to be afraid?

It is paradoxical that in some circumstances we like to be afraid. A horror movie that makes our hair stand on end becomes funny when the scene ends well or when we realize that we are seeing a mere fantasy. Then the fear is relieved and gives way to joy, that is, to enjoy something that initially frightened us.

The paradox is that, by definition, fear is an emotional process that warns us of a threat, of something that puts our physical or mental integrity at risk. Therefore, the experience should be anything but exhilarating.

The alarm system turns on

To understand this phenomenon, we must start by conceiving emotions as an alarm system that tells us that something important is happening. Something relevant for being good for us or for threatening us in some way.

There are, therefore, two types of emotions. In the first place, we have those with a positive hedonic tone, which are the ones that are pleasant for us, the ones that we want to be repeated and lead us to approach that which produces them for us. We like to be with people who love us and we make all kinds of approaches to stay with them as long as possible.

Second, there are negative hedonic tone emotions, which are unpleasant. We do not want them to repeat themselves and they lead us to get as far away from them as possible. We don’t like to be next to a violent person who looks at us badly and turns our bodies upside down.

Like a good alarm system, emotions should be active for as short a time as possible: if they last longer than strictly necessary, they become a problem in themselves. They have to notify us of the situation and shut down as quickly as possible.

Counterbalance of emotions

To achieve this, positive and negative emotions regulate each other. That is to say, after the joy of meeting a friend that we had not seen for a long time, when we separate we are left with the sadness of not knowing how long it will take to meet again. The positive emotion is replaced by the negative one, which deactivates the previous one and allows us to quickly return to an emotionally neutral situation.

In the same way, the fear that the presence of a large dog, with bloodshot eyes and that seems to be looking at us with perfidious intentions can cause us, dissipates when the owner appears and puts the leash on it. And if this hasn’t been enough, he will disappear when he gets far enough away from us to lose sight of him. Fear becomes relief, it produces a positive emotion that deactivates fear itself when it is no longer necessary.

This paradox that converts emotions from a positive hedonic tone to a negative one and vice versa is technically called the opponent process. It is the main responsible for the regulation of the emotions that we know as primary, that is, those produced by something external to us, such as seeing a friend or the appearance of a dog with a bad face.

However, this phenomenon does not appear with secondary emotions, that is, those that are produced by a mental representation, such as remembering said encounter or recalling the episode of the threatening dog. The persistence of the situation in our mind makes secondary emotions last much longer than primary ones and their regulation process is very different.

The psychology of roller coasters

The opponent process is responsible for the fact that when, for example, we ride a roller coaster, the fear that it produces is fun for us, especially if the experience is short enough so that we are not sensitized to said fear.

To be fun, a roller coaster has to be very scary for a very short period of time. But the next times we ride, the scare will hardly appear anymore, the anticipation that we have learned that we will come out of the situation unscathed means that we practically do not feel the fear. And at the same time, the fun of the opponent process will also be disappearing when it ends.

The relationship is direct: the more fear, the more fun. For this reason, the new roller coasters have to be bigger and bigger and more beastly, to enjoy the effect of the opponent process. And that is why we enjoy a horror story, a scary movie, an extreme sport or the gloomy costumes and celebrations of Halloween. The intensity of funny (opponent process) that results comes from the intensity provided by the primary process (fear).

Remnants of fear add to relief

There is a transfer of intensity or emotional arousal from the primary emotion, fear, to the secondary, relief, joy, or amusement. The call excitation transfer formulates that if a person has been activated in a primary emotional context and soon finds himself in the opposing context, this will provoke a second emotion, which will have the intensity of the first one plus that of that second activation. Something like if remains of the activation produced by the first emotion are added to that produced by the second.

Undoubtedly, one of the things that can cause us the most fear, or fear with maximum intensity, is death and everything related to it. That is why it is not surprising that many fun activities have sprung up around them, from Halloween to horror movies and series. And given the transfer of emotional intensities, it turns out that get rid of death It is one of the most fun activities that there can be, but it is also adaptive, since it prepares us to face and fight with our fears.

Enrique García Fernández-Abascal, Professor of Psychology of Emotion and Motivation, UNED – National University of Distance Education

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.