"Over millions of years, Scrivner reminds us, human beings became more knowledgeable about and sensitized to threats from predators as well as repulsed by and afraid of them. "This imprint," Scrivner writes, "lies at the core of our morbid curiosity," which can serve us well "when threats are placed in a safe context," such as a story, a movie, a "haunted house," or a video game."
"From a young age, Coltan Scrivner indicates, Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer, collected, bleached, and preserved the bones of rats and roadkill. He watched The Exorcist III several times each week and forced his victims to view the movie before he murdered them. And, Scrivner notes, the two students at Columbine High School who killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives loved the video games Doom and Mortal Kombat."
From childhood behaviors such as collecting bones and repeatedly watching horror films, some killers exhibited morbid curiosity. Easy access to horror media has become a scapegoat for explaining gruesome violence. Morbid curiosity operates as a personality trait that helps people face fear, disgust, and the unknown. Evolutionary imprinting increased sensitivity to predators and repulsion. When threats are simulated in safe contexts—stories, movies, haunted houses, video games—morbid curiosity can be adaptive. Two decades of research show violent video games do not cause children to commit violence, though some content may be inappropriate. Research remains in its infancy.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]