Why do we like to get a little scared? The James-Lange theory of emotion would suggest that we experience our bodies' fear response, racing hearts and sweaty palms, but then mislabel that arousal as "fun" or "excitement." As well, haunted houses keep us in the present moment so we cannot worry about anything else at the same time. People who were stressed before going into a haunted house often report the highest amount of relaxation from the experience.
But do we all get scared by the same things? Muroff, Spencer, Ross, Williams, Neighbors, and Jackson (2014) wondered if White and African American men and women have different ideas of what causes fear. They used a cognitive interview technique by asking a convenience sample of almost 200 participants (ages 18-85) a single question, "What makes and object or a situation fearful?" (p. 156).
From their answers the researchers distilled five categories of what makes something scary:
External Locus of Control: feeling out of control; not knowing what is about to happen.
Harm/Danger: risk that something would hurt or threaten your health/life.
Phobias: an irrational, intense fear of something that provokes immediate anxiety and/or panic.
Past Experience: having had or knowing about someone else's past experience with something that was fear-inducing.
Self-Perception: your belief that you will find something scary or not be able to handle something.
Muroff et al. then reexamined the participants' responses to see how often all of the participants and participants from specific groups included these categories in their original explanations about what makes things scary. From these qualitative data, they found that (p. 157):
*The most common category for all participants was External Locus of Control: it was mentioned in 35% of all explanations. This was followed by Harm/Danger (29%) and Phobias (18%).
*White women were 1.5 times more likely than African-American women to include External Locus of Control as part of their answers.
*External Locus of Control appeared most in the explanations given by White women and the least in explanations given by White men.
*Older participants' responses were more likely to include External Locus of Control.
*White men were 3.5 times more likely than African-American men to include Past Experience in their responses.
*Men were more likely than women to include references of Self-Perception.
*Phobia was most common in the answers given by participants who had not completed high school.
This would suggest that these same individuals would react differently to various aspects of a haunted house. The majority, but especially White female and older participants, would be scared by unpredictable situations: dark passageways; rooms filled with disorienting lighting and mirrors; going around blind corners; not being able to find the way out of a room.
White male participants would be scared of things that remind them of bad situations that they, or people they know, have experienced. For example, an actor throwing a fake punch toward them, or a torture scene that includes an actor being kicked in the genitals or having a thumb hit by a hammer.
Males, in general, would also be afraid if they were led to believe that they could not handle a situation. This could be induced by playing recorded messages like, "You are helpless," "Others have come here but nobody leaves alive," or, "You can fight but you are too weak to escape," as they walk through the haunted house.
Finally, participants who had not completed high school might be particularly afraid if the horrific scenes included common phobia triggers. For example, spiders, needles, blood, tight spaces, or high heights.
Muroff et al. were not interested in how to build the scariest haunted house. Instead they were curious if people from different groups may have different interpretations of an assessment question that is commonly used to diagnosis phobias. Their results suggest that age, education level, sex, and race can influence how people conceptualize fear, and this may affect the accuracy of that phobia assessment.
The authors emphasized that the results likely reflect truly scary aspects of American culture. For example, women tend to have less financial power related to men; money allows you to better control your experiences. I would also add that women are more often cautioned to control their environments to prevent dangerous situations (e.g.; never walk alone; don't leave your drink unattended; walk with purpose and stay in well-lit areas). This may be particularly true for White women as the media more often portrays them as victims of violence - even though it is African American women who actually experience more violence. Perhaps this is why White women were more likely to endorse External Locus of Control as something that induces fear.
More clearly, Muroff et al. wrote, "Research on coping mechanisms for discriminated and stigmatized groups suggests that African American men and women may depend on various mechanisms for coping such as external locus of control and social learning" (p. 158). In this case external locus of control means that discrimination is explained as being random or a product of the situation, and thereby not caused by the person experiencing this unfair treatment. The authors explained that this beneficial coping mechanism would be less likely to be part of African Americans' explanations of fear.
Additionally they wrote, "Our findings also suggest that White respondents in this sample mention past experiences in their conceptualizations of fear more frequently than their African American counterparts. African Americans' experiences may be influenced more by unpredictable events including acts of racism and discrimination." Because of this, "African Americans may focus on the present and future in order to cope with adverse life experiences" (p. 158). When your past is full of fear it might not help you distinguish if a new situation is scary or not.
We can all exit a haunted house, but we can rarely step outside of our own experience of biological sex, race, and culture. The first step is to realize that we are all different: the same environment may be fun for some and scary for others.
Further Reading:
The Muroff et al. (2014) article can be accessed through your local college library.
Listen to National Public Radio's "Hidden Brain" podcast on the Science of Fear.
Read about Neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett who creates a yearly haunted house in her basement based on the neuroscience of fear. The proceeds of the event are donated to charity.
BONUS:
Watch when talk show host Ellen Degeneris sends her executive producer and "Modern Family" star, Eric Stonestreet, through a haunted house. These men are both White: does their behavior match the results of Muroff et al.?
Andy Goes to a Haunted House with Eric Stonestreet, Part 2 | EllenTV.com
