Why are we as humas so attracted to things that scare us, like horror movies, watching true crime, going to ‘haunted houses’?
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The brain likes pushing us to experience potentially dangerous situations in a relatively safe way, so that if we experience those situations in the future we will be able to deal with them better.
Back in caveman days that meant getting into stick fights with your brother or watching from a distance as the grown ups hunted down a mammoth.
Nowadays it is a bit more divorced from it’s original intention of helping you survive in the wilderness but we still crave it in the same way. Also even today it’s probably still helpful in that way. Watching true crime for example can teach you to be wary of certain risky things like getting into a strangers car and so on.
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