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Written By: Rachel Putman
As Halloween approaches, haunted houses fill up, horror movies take over streaming platforms, and people across the country willingly sign up to be terrified. But what’s happening in the brain when fear sets in—and why do so many people enjoy it?
To answer those questions, University of Arkansas – Fort Smith faculty members from the Department of Behavioral Sciences offered their expertise on the science behind fear, thrill, and the strange delight of spooky season.
Q: What happens in the brain when someone is afraid?
Answered by Dr. Nicha Otero, Department Head of Behavioral Sciences and Associate Professor
The feeling of fear activates several brain systems. When this happens, our body responses also kick in.
Some of the core areas of the brain that are activated include the amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex (PFC). The amygdala and hippocampus are both parts of the limbic system — the emotion center of the brain. The amygdala is well known for its primary role in generating fear.
The hypothalamus maintains our body's homeostasis, letting us know, for example, when we're hungry, thirsty, tired, hot, or cold. It makes up part of what is called the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis, which is involved in our stress responses and, in turn, releases cortisol.
The hippocampus is responsible for the consolidation of memories and is the amygdala's closest neighbor in the brain. This is why our most memorable memories are so heavily laden with emotion. This also explains how phobias are formed — we become afraid of something because it becomes so closely tied to a fearful event or experience.
The PFC is described by Khalin (1993) as both a cognitive and emotional area and may be involved in how we interpret sensory information coming in from the environment. Thus, at Halloween time, when we experience scary things — a person dressed in a Dracula costume jumping out at you in a haunted house — the PFC helps us interpret it differently than if those scary things were a real threat, such as a person jumping out at you on the street late at night when it's not Halloween season.
The activation of these brain structures triggers the "fight-or-flight" response, which leads to increased heart rate, respiration rate, and muscle readiness to either fight or run away as fast as we can from a potential threat.
Q: Why do some people like being scared?
Answered by Dr. Nicha Otero, Department Head of Behavioral Sciences and Associate Professor
It might seem paradoxical, but interestingly, some of the main chemicals that are released by the brain when we experience fear are the same ones that are released when we experience a positive emotional state, like joy or excitement (Javanbakht & Saab, 2017, The Conversation).
According to these authors, when our thinking brain (mainly the PFC) provides feedback to our emotional brain (which begins with the amygdala) and we perceive our experience of something frightening as safe or fun, we shift the way we experience this heightened arousal state. We go from fear to excitement.
Those chemicals that are released when we become scared or excited include adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, and endorphins. While we may be more familiar with the adrenaline rush, stress-related cortisol, and feel-good endorphins, we may not always think about dopamine.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and is one of the key chemicals related to the high a person feels when they are reinforced. This "reinforcement loop" can lead to addictive behaviors.
USC Today explains how safe fear equals a novel experience, meaning that when we engage with a "threat," knowing that we're in a safe space, it gives us novelty and a sense of satisfaction from having survived it.
Rock&Art.org and Psychology Today also discuss the idea of experiencing emotional catharsis and relief, where going through a scary scenario and emerging safe can provide a feeling of relief, mastery, or even social bonding when we're experiencing that fear with others.
The key takeaway in all of this is that when you promote a haunted house or a horror-themed event, you're tapping into real human drives, which include a sense of novelty — we humans seem to thrive on novel things — physiological arousal, safe threat, and relief.
And the framing matters. If people know the environment in which they are experiencing that fear is being adequately controlled and they'll be safe, that helps them enjoy the thrill rather than feel real horror.
Q: Why do we get more scared in groups?
Answered by Dr. Nicha Otero, Department Head of Behavioral Sciences and Associate Professor
I had to look this one up more than the first two, as I tend to get more scared when I'm alone.
Tedeschi and colleagues (2022) found in their studies that as group size increases, fear responses decrease. It provides somewhat of a social buffering effect, or the idea of "safety in numbers."
Coming from a more behaviorist background and teaching about observational learning, in which we learn how to respond by observing others, being with a group during a fear experience can amplify the emotional intensity, which can heighten the experience of being scared together.
You share jump-scares, you see others reacting, you anticipate others' reactions, and a socially contagious effect — a real thing — happens.
When you know that the fear experience isn't a real threat, being part of a group in such a shared experience can make it more fun. You laugh together after the initial scare, and you can talk about the experience with one another afterward.
Thus, while larger groups may reduce fear of harm, they may increase emotional intensity or shared thrill, especially if the fear does not lead to a real threat.
Q: How do things like horror movies and haunted houses use the science of fear?
Answered by Dr. Nicha Otero, Department Head of Behavioral Sciences and Associate Professor
I really had to look this one up because I never thought about how successful movie writers and producers are at creating that fear response through the screen — enough for some people to experience nightmares afterward.
Nummenmaa (2021) discusses the psychology and neurobiology of horror movies. In that work, they talk about how primitive brain circuits are triggered. For example, jump scares or sudden loud noises activate the amygdala and other parts of the arousal system, causing heart rate to spike and adrenaline to increase.
Some of the research they discuss has actually shown parts of the fear circuitry in the brain "lighting up" when exposed to these kinds of jump scares or sudden loud noises in a film.
Park (Digital Commons at Long Island University, 2018) also discusses the elements within a horror film and their physiological effect on a person. Producers have a way of manipulating our anticipation and tension using sound, lighting, visual cues such as shadow and movement, and pacing of surprise, which I learned is a storytelling technique used to create and control the element of surprise for an audience.
All of these elements build anticipation, which in turn increases physiological arousal, and then release, which provides relief. In a safe setting, that cycle of arousal and relief provides intrinsic enjoyment for us.
Along these lines, and going back to question No. 2, despite the jump scares in a horror movie, we — and the movie producers — know that it is a controlled threat and it is all happening within a safe environment.
While horror films give you the threat, we know that we are basically safe. We can turn it off or leave the movie theater. You're in a building with a lot of other people watching the movie, and there are emergency exits. That dichotomy seems to play a key role in the enjoyment of these types of films.
So there's a sweet spot that movie producers aim for. Anderson (2020) notes that a good horror experience aims to find a level of fear that is thrilling, but not traumatic. That way people feel exhilarated and not overwhelmed.
The "inverted-U" effect in enjoyment of fear applies here — enjoyment is related to forms of arousal dynamics that are "just right."
Answered by Dr. Gregg Roberts, Clinical Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences
"When we get scared, it is a flood," Roberts explained. "A flood of adrenaline and a release of endorphins related to our survival instincts."
Although triggered by fear, he said those reactions can feel pleasurable because they create what he describes as "jacked up" or euphoric moments.
"What makes Halloween different is that we have a safety net — we know it is not real," Roberts said. "We like the upshot of feel-good chemicals knowing that it is not real."
He also pointed to the social aspect of fear.
"A Halloween story or event leaves us, in most cases, with a nice relief and gratefulness that it was just a prank or a quick boo," he said. "Additionally, these events are facilitations for feeling close to others that we may love. Maybe this explains why couples in love like to go to haunted houses."
Roberts added that while Sigmund Freud proposed the idea of Thanatos — an attraction to darkness and death — modern research tends to focus more on pleasure, risk, and reward.
Q: Is there a haunted Arkansas mystery that psychology can help explain?
Answered by Dr. Stephen Berry, Associate Professor of Behavioral Sciences
The Gurdon Light phenomenon in Gurdon, Arkansas, is an interesting example of something "haunted" in our state.
"I like to use this in my General Psychology class as an application of constructs within the scope of sensation and perception," Berry said.
The mysterious light has been the subject of both scholarly research and local folklore for decades. Berry said it offers a useful reminder that our perceptions can be influenced by a variety of psychological factors, particularly when we're encountering something unusual or unexplained.
He noted that researchers have also found that interests in horror content can vary based on personality and social factors, including differences in sensation-seeking, empathy, and emotional engagement.