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Science explains why we love being scared
Psychologists discover why people participate in scary attractions.
- Psychologists link anxiety from ambiguity to why we find some people or situations creepy.
- A study showed that people who go to scary attractions find their moods improving and stress levels lowered.
- Scary situations can produce a euphoria and a sense of achievement.
With Halloween upon us, we are once again reminded that we like to be scared. There's just something about creepy and frightening things that we want to invite them into our lives and even celebrate their existence. Why does that make sense? What is the science behind our desire to be scared?
The reason we find certain people and situations creepy may be linked to the "agency-detection" mechanism that's been proposed by evolutionary psychologists. This an internal "fight or flight" reaction that warns you about a shady person in a dark alley or some other similar threat by heightening your level of arousal and attention. As psychologist Frank T. McAndrew writes in his overview of creepiness studies for Psychology Today, we are programmed to behave a certain way if we think there's an "agent" out there who is intending on doing us harm. And even if the threat doesn't pan out, we react out of an abundance of caution.
McAndrew defines a sense of creepiness as an "anxiety aroused by the ambiguity of whether there is something to fear, and/or by the ambiguity of the precise nature of the threat". We may not know whether the threat is of sexual or physical violence but the uncertainty and the potentiality of that threat is what makes us feel the situation or person causing it is "creepy".
In McAndrew's study on the subject, which recruited 1,341 individual to answer a Facebook survey, his team found that people perceived to be creepy were more likely to be male. Females, in fact, are more likely to view creepy people as posing a sexual threat. Abnormal physical characteristics and nonverbal behaviors contributed to the sense of creepiness.
The study also identified which professions we find creeper than others. At the top of the creepy occupations list were clowns, taxidermists, sex-shop owners and funeral home directors. From a cultural standpoint, we've certainly seen enough popular movies about such characters. One of the current box office champions is IT 2. One of the most famous horror films of all time? Hitchcock's "Psycho" which features a taxidermist as the main villain.
IT 2 Final Trailer (2019)
Interestingly, among the hobbies people found creepy were collecting things like insects, dolls or body parts like teeth, bones or fingernails. "Watching" was also considered a creepy hobby, be it watching children, taking pictures of people or even bird watching.
While we may know what we find creepy, some of us certainly enjoy a good scare. What can science tell us about the desire for such a response? Being scared creates a certain kind of high, supported by a recent study published in the journal Emotion. The researchers looked at so-called Voluntary Arousing Negative Experiences (VANE) to discover why we would willingly subject ourselves to frights.
That study looked at 262 adults attending an "extreme" haunted attraction in Pittsburgh called ScareHouse. The participants self-reported on their expectations and emotional reactions to the experience. A 100 of the participants were also assessed via electroencephalography (EEG) to measure their brain activity. The researchers found that about half of the people's moods improved following the attraction, especially among those who reported being bored, tired or stressed out prior to the event. Their "neural reactivity" decreased following the stress of the haunted experience and they were more capable of dealing with subsequent stresses.
Why do we like to be scared? | Dr. Margee Kerr | TEDxFoggyBottom
From haunted houses to horror films, why do we enjoy being scared? Sociologist Dr. Margee Kerr reconsiders the physical and psychological effects of fear on ...In an interview with Time magazine, Margee Kerr, a sociologist who specializes in fear and who was involved in the VANE study, described what happens in situations where we voluntarily seek out scary situations as a "kind of euphoria".
"When we're in a safe place, we can interpret that threat response as we do any high arousal response like joy or happiness," said Kerr, "The response is triggered by anything unpredictable or startling. But when we're in a safe place and we know it, it takes less than a second for us to remember we're not actually in danger. Then we switch over to enjoying it. It's a kind of euphoria. That's why you see people go right from screaming to laughing."
She also thinks undergoing a scary experience like a haunted house gives people a sense of achievement, adding "Like any personal challenge, running a 5K or climbing a tree, we stressed [ourselves] and came out okay." Even if the experience was bound to be safe, we still feel accomplished for having participated in it.
Another aspect of scary experiences in a group is the prospect of social bonding. Being scared in collective trimmest the formation of strong memories. The shared scare can make for a night to remember fondly for a long time.
Why Nikola Tesla was obsessed with the Egyptian pyramids
The inventor Nikola Tesla's esoteric beliefs included unusual theories about the Egyptian pyramids.
Tesla and the Pyramid of Giza
- Nikola Tesla had numerous unusual obsessions.
- One of his beliefs was that the Great Pyramids of Egypt were giant transmitters of energy.
- He built Tesla Towers according to laws inspired by studying the Pyramids.
Nikola Tesla died somewhat unappreciated but his fame and the myth around him has continued to grow tremendously into our times. He is now perceived as the ultimate mad scientist, the one who essentially invented our times, credited with key ideas leading to smartphones, wi-fi, AC electrical supply system, and more.
Besides ideas that Tesla implemented and patented, he also had many other interests in different fields of research, some quite esoteric. One of the most unusual was his preoccupation with Egyptian pyramids, one of humanity's most mysterious and magnificent constructions.
Tesla believed they served a higher purpose and was investigating them throughout his life. What did he find so alluring about the pyramids? He wondered if they weren't giant transmitters of energy – a thought that coincided with his investigation into how to send energy wirelessly.
In 1905, Tesla filed a patent in the U.S. titled "The art of transmitting electrical energy through the natural medium," outlining designs for a series of generators around the world which would tap the ionosphere for energy collections. He saw planet Earth itself, with its two poles, as a giant electrical generator of limitless energy. His triangle-shaped design became known as Tesla's electromagnetic pyramid.
Tesla sitting in his Colorado Springs laboratory
1899
"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence," said Tesla.
It wasn't just the shape of the Egyptian pyramids but their location that created their power, according to Tesla. He built a tower facility known as the Tesla Experimental Station in Colorado Springs and Wardenclyffe Tower or Tesla Tower on the East Coast that sought to take advantage of the Earth's energy field. The locations were chosen according to the laws of where the Pyramids of Giza were built, related to the relationship between the elliptical orbit of the planet and the equator. The design was intended for wireless transmission of energy.
Wardenclyffe Tower. 1904.
Were the Great Pyramids essentially ancient Tesla Towers? How the Pyramids were made:
How the Pyramids Were Built (Pyramid Science Part 2!)
Another aspect of Tesla's thinking reportedly related to numerology. Tesla was, by many accounts, an unusual individual, with obsessive qualities. One such obsession were the numbers "3,6,9", which he believed were the key to the universe. He would drive around buildings 3 times before going in or stay in hotels with numbers divisible by 3. He made other choices in sets of 3. Some believe Tesla's obsession with these numbers connected to his preference for pyramidal shapes and the belief that there was some fundamental mathematical law and ratios that are part of a universal math language. As we don't know precisely how the pyramids were built and why, they are looked at by some as creations that may be either generating energy or be serving as deliberately installed messengers or even code from an ancient civilization.
It's easy to get into "ancient aliens" type of theories by extending such thinking. If you're up for such an approach, check out this video:
Nikola Tesla - Limitless Energy & the Pyramids of Egypt
The other moral in Frankenstein and how to apply it to human brains and reanimated pigs
Some neurology experiments — such as growing miniature human brains and reanimating the brains of dead pigs — are getting weird. It's time to discuss ethics.
- Two bioethicists consider a lesser known moral in Frankenstein and what it means for science today.
- We are still a ways from Shelley's novel, but we are getting closer.
- They suggest that scientists begin thinking of sentient creations as having moral rights regardless of what the law says.
Compared to what we see in science fiction, most of our major advances in modifying organisms are actually rather dull. For example, despite being deemed "Frankenfoods," genetically modified crops are typically changed in simple ways that make them hardier and easier to grow. We are still a long way from approaching the work of Dr. Frankenstein.
However, we are getting closer all the time. And exactly what we should do in the event that we create an organism with moral standing remains the subject of some debate.
Because of this, Dr. Julian Koplin of the University of Melbourne Law School and Dr. John Massie of The Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne wrote a paper discussing a lesser known ethical lesson of Frankenstein and how it might be applied to some of our more cutting-edge experiments — before we find ourselves asking what to do with artificially created sentient life.
The other moral in Frankenstein
The moral of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that most people are familiar with is, "Don't play God," or some variation of that theme. Most film and television versions of the story follow this route, perhaps most notably in the famous 1931 film adaptation starring Boris Karloff as the monster.
This take on the ethical lesson of Frankenstein may be more useful than the broad warning against hubris, as modern science is getting ever closer to creating things with sentience.
However, Shelly's work covers many themes. One of them is that the real moral failure of Victor Frankenstein was not in creating his creature but in failing to meet or even consider the moral obligations he had to it. Thus, your pedantic friend who notes, "Frankenstein is the name of the doctor, not the monster," is both annoying and correct. Frankenstein never bothered to name his creature after bringing it into the world.
That's not the only thing Frankenstein failed to give the creature. The authors explain:
"...the 'monster' had at least some degree of moral status — which is to say, he was the kind of being to which we have moral obligations. Frankenstein refused to recognize any duties towards his creation, including even the modest duties we currently extend towards nonhuman research animals; Frankenstein denied his creature a name, shelter, healthcare, citizenship, or relationships with other creatures of its kind. In so doing, Frankenstein wronged his creation."
The Creature, as the monster is sometimes known in the novel, differs greatly from how most films depict him — uncoordinated, stupid, and brutish. He learns to speak several languages, references classic literature, and reveals that he is a vegetarian for ethical reasons. Before he spends his time devising a complex revenge plot against his creator, his primary desire is for companionship. He is also quite sensitive. Even if he is not entitled to the same moral standing as other humans, it seems intuitive that he has some moral standing that is never recognized.
This take on the ethical lesson of Frankenstein may be more useful than the broad warning against hubris, as modern science is getting ever closer to creating things with sentience.
Brain experiments are getting creepy and weird
One area of experimentation is the creation of human brain organoids that provide simplified, living 3D models of the brain. These organoids are grown with stem cells over the course of several months and are very similar to certain parts of the cortex. Scientists are doing this in their effort to better understand the brain and its associated diseases.
While it is unlikely that we have created anything complex enough to achieve consciousness, many researchers maintain that it is theoretically possible for an organoid to become conscious. Some experiments have already produced tissues that are light sensitive, suggesting at least a limited capacity for awareness.
In a turn toward a more literal reading of Shelley, a team of Yale scientists reanimated pig brains and kept some of them alive for 36 hours. While these revived brains neither were attached to pig bodies nor exhibited the electrical signals associated with consciousness, the study does raise the possibility that such a thing could be done. Other experiments seem to be based more on The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, including one in which monkeys were modified to carry a human gene for brain development. These monkeys had better short-term memory and reaction times than non-modified monkeys.
Where do we go from here?
The authors do not propose that we stop any particular research but instead consider the problem of moral standing. We should decide now what duties and moral obligations we owe to a sentient creature before the problem is literally looking us in the face.
While it is true that animal research is tightly regulated, nobody seems to have planned for reanimated pigs or monkeys with human-like intelligence. Though ethics reviews of experiments likely would catch the most egregious experiments before they venture into the realm of Gothic horror, they might miss a few things if we do not engage in some bioethical reflection now.
The authors suggest that we take two points from Frankenstein to guide us in drawing up new ethical standards: First, we should consider anything we create as existing on a moral plane no matter what the current regulations state. Exactly where a particular creature might fall on the moral spectrum is another question. (For instance, a reanimated pig brain does not have the same moral standing as a human being.)
Second, they remind us that we must try to avoid holding prejudice toward any moral beings that look or act differently than we do. In the novel, Dr. Frankenstein recoils in horror almost instinctively at what he created with monstrous results (no pun intended). We must be willing to consider atypical beings as potentially worthy of moral standing no matter how strange they may be.
Finally, they advise that every manipulated organism be treated with respect. This might be the most easily applied — had Victor Frankenstien respected the graves he looted to create his monster, none of the misfortune that followed would have befallen him.
How to take Earth’s inner temperature with erupted sea glass
Scientists look to erupted sea glass — lava that erupted in the ocean and was instantly chilled by the surrounding water — to take Earth's temperature.
This sprawling ocean ridge system is a product of overturning material in the Earth's interior, where boiling temperatures can melt and loft rocks up through the crust, splitting the sea floor and reshaping the planet's surface over hundreds of millions of years.
Now geologists at MIT have analyzed thousands of samples of erupted material along ocean ridges and traced back their chemical history to estimate the temperature of the Earth's interior.
Their analysis shows that the temperature of the Earth's underlying ocean ridges is relatively consistent, at around 1,350 degrees Celsius — about as hot as a gas range's blue flame. There are, however, "hotspots" along the ridge that can reach 1,600 degrees Celsius, comparable to the hottest lava.
The team's results, appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, provide a temperature map of the Earth's interior around ocean ridges. With this map, scientists can better understand the melting processes that give rise to undersea volcanoes, and how these processes may drive the pace of plate tectonics over time.
"Convection and plate tectonics have been important processes in shaping Earth history," says lead author Stephanie Brown Krein, a postdoc in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). "Knowing the temperature along this whole chain is fundamental to understanding the planet as a heat engine, and how Earth might be different from other planets and able to sustain life."
Krein's co-authors include Zachary Molitor, an EAPS graduate student, and Timothy Grove, the R.R. Schrock Professor of Geology at MIT.
A chemical history
The Earth's interior temperature has played a critical role in shaping the planet's surface over hundreds of millions of years. But there's been no way to directly read this temperature tens to hundreds of kilometers below the surface. Scientists have applied indirect means to infer the temperature of the upper mantle — the layer of the Earth just below the crust. But estimates thus far are inconclusive, and scientists disagree about how widely temperatures vary beneath the surface.
For their new study, Krein and her colleagues developed a new algorithm, called ReversePetrogen, that is designed to trace a rock's chemical history back in time, to identify its original composition of elements and determine the temperature at which the rock initially melted below the surface.
The algorithm is based on years of experiments carried out in Grove's lab to reproduce and characterize the melting processes of the Earth's interior. Researchers in the lab have heated up rocks of various compositions, reaching various temperatures and pressures, to observe their chemical evolution. From these experiments, the team has been able to derive equations — and ultimately, the new algorithm — to predict the relationships between a rock's temperature, pressure, and chemical composition.
Krein and her colleagues applied their new algorithm to rocks collected along the Earth's ocean ridges — a system of undersea volcanoes spanning more than 70,000 kilometers in length. Ocean ridges are regions where tectonic plates are spread apart by the eruption of material from the Earth's mantle — a process that is driven by underlying temperatures.
"You could effectively make a model of the temperature of the entire interior of the Earth, based partly on the temperature at these ridges," Krein says. "The question is, what is the data really telling us about the temperature variation in the mantle along the whole chain?"
Mantle map
The data the team analyzed include more than 13,500 samples collected along the length of the ocean ridge system over several decades, by multiple research cruises. Each sample in the dataset is of an erupted sea glass — lava that erupted in the ocean and was instantly chilled by the surrounding water into a pristine, preserved form.
Scientists previously identified the chemical compositions of each glass in the dataset. Krein and her colleagues ran each sample's chemical compositions through their algorithm to determine the temperature at which each glass originally melted in the mantle.
In this way, the team was able to generate a map of mantle temperatures along the entire length of the ocean ridge system. From this map, they observed that much of the mantle is relatively homogenous, with an average temperature of around 1,350 degrees Celsius. There are however, "hotspots," or regions along the ridge, where temperatures in the mantle appear significantly hotter, at around 1,600 degrees Celsius.
"People think of hotspots as regions in the mantle where it's hotter, and where material may be melting more, and potentially rising faster, and we don't exactly know why, or how much hotter they are, or what the role of composition is at hotspots," Krein says. "Some of these hotspots are on the ridge, and now we may get a sense of what the hotspot variation is globally using this new technique. That tells us something fundamental about the temperature of the Earth now, and now we can think of how it's changed over time."
Krein adds: "Understanding these dynamics will help us better determine how continents grew and evolved on Earth, and when subduction and plate tectonics started — which are critical for complex life."
This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation.
Reprinted with permission of MIT News. Read the original article.
The strange case of the dead-but-not-dead Tibetan monks
For some reason, the bodies of deceased monks stay "fresh" for a long time.
