Tag Archives: Fear

Posted on by

The Psychology of Horror

If you can get your hands on the new issue of GamePro magazine (#267, December 2010 with Diablo 3 on the cover), check out my article on the psychology of horror. The timing with Halloween was better a week or so ago when the issue first came out.

This is another one of those topics that I was unsure of when the editor at GamePro asked me to tackle it. Not only did I not t really know much about the topic, I’m not even a fan of horror movies or games in particular. I’ve never seen a Saw movie or any other “gore pr0n” in my life, nor do I want to. Still, that’s why they call it “research” so I hit the library and found some more informed experts in the fields of psychology, media studies, and communications to help fill in the blanks. I got some great material, and the article turned out to be a lot of fun to write.

This is the issue to look for if you want to read the article.

I turned Bobo the Quote Monkey loose on the article, and he returned with this:

Bobo want banana.

So I gave him a banana, reminded him about the performance standards in his contract, and sent him back. This time he came up with the following:

A second set of explanations for horror’s delight posits that we hate the horror, but like the proverbial man who bangs his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops, we love the relief that comes at the end.

Excitation transfer theory, credited earlier with enabling spooky soundtracks to do their job, has also been hypothesized to give us a kind of “thank god that’s over” high. “People become physically aroused due to the fear they experience during the media event –and then when the media event ends, that arousal transfers to the experience of relief and intensifies it,” Sparks says. “They don’t so much enjoy the experience of being afraid –rather, they enjoy the intense positive emotion that may directly follow.”

Other explanations for the appeal of horror are cited, plus I also ruminate on what the research tells us about scary video games in particular. I really don’t have any feedback on how well these GamePro pieces are being received, so if you’re reading them, post a comment and tell me what you think.

Posted on by

Irrational Games on The Psychology of Fear

Irrational Behavior Podcast
You may have heard about a little outfit called “Irrational Games” whose members can claim varying degrees of responsibility for scary and suspenseful titles like System Shock, Bioshock, and the Thief games. They do a semi-regular podcast about their games called “Irrational Behavior” that is a bit like a cross between “This American Life” and Grand Ballroom C at a tourettes syndrome convention. It’s great.

A recent episode is of particular interest to me, as it deals with the psychology of fear and what people are afraid of. Podcast producer Shawn Elliot had actually approached me to appear on the episode to talk about the psychology of fear, but while I would have loved to I had to admit that I didn’t really know anything about the topic and should probably pass. That was probably a good call, as Shawn got some nifty information by talking to an actual expert, Indiana university Telecommunications Professor Andrew Weaver who has studied fear in different kinds of media:

Fear is arousing. Arousal in and of itself can be enjoyable or attractive if we’re bored or if we’re the type of person who likes to be more physiologically aroused. And fear certainly can do that. Experiencing mediated fear gives us the opportunity to experience fear in a controlled way. Where we have the potential, at least, to master our fears, to control threats, in a way that we can’t in real life.

And he goes on. In addition to that, there are interviews with some of the artists at Irrational Games about how they create a sense of fear, and it seems that these folks have as good a grasp on the subject as any psychologist. It’s a good listen. Click here.

Shawn also goes around the Irrational Games offices quizzing people on what they’re afraid of, and some of the answers are pretty funny. By the way, if he had asked me, I would have said “Jupiter.” As in the planet. For some reason the thought of something that big, that far away, and that alien scared me as a kid. I still tense up just a little bit if I see a picture of that particular planet.

What about you? What are you afraid of? Has it ever showed up in a game?