I have noticed that whenever i hang out with my friends, and we either watch a horror movie, or someone pranks one another with a jumpscare, they all seem to scream in response, whilst i freeze and dont make a sound. Why is my reaction so different, and what characteristics contributes to this.
In: Biology
I can’t speak of movies in that respect. I can only speak of experience. I have probably gone through all of those in different situations. I think that is key. It depends on your state of mind at the time.
I’m sure others can do better at explaining this. For me, my mood might have been more defiant and it was probably stupid. Gun pointed at me and told the dude to f**k off. He did. Same with a guy with a knife. Not the smartest move though.
There are actually generally considered to be “Four F’s” when it comes to stress stimulus: fight, flight, freeze, and friend (sometimes called fawn). The short answer is, we aren’t totally sure why people react differently. It probably has something to do with how your brain is wired and how you have responded to previous dangers. Some of it is probably instinctual based on your subconscious perception of the type of danger you are facing; you are not necessarily always going to react the same way to different types of scary thing. Some research indicates that our choice can be influenced by our perception of both predictability of violence and our personal control over the situation. You freeze at scary movies, but you might punch a bully, for instance.
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