"Morbid curiosity is defined as 'that peculiar feeling of fascination that motivates us to face fear, disgust, and the unknown.' Interest in what's scary and macabre is good for us because it helps us to identify threats and practice an effective response to them, supported through the logic of evolutionary psychology."
"Successful predators operate by blending in, befriending, and deceiving so no one suspects what they intend. The werewolf game demonstrates this strategy: the informed minority of predators must use deceptive bonding with the uninformed majority to deflect objective analysis and stay hidden while picking off villagers."
"Negative events capture our attention faster, increase our arousal more, provoke stronger responses, and are remembered with ease compared to positive or neutral events. Threat-related information is seen as more important than other kinds of information, and people who spread threatening information are seen as more reliable and trustworthy."
Evolutionary psychology suggests that morbid curiosity and fascination with true crime serve a protective function by helping humans identify and manage predatory threats. Dr. Coltan Scrivner argues in his book Morbid Curiosity that interest in scary and macabre content is beneficial because it allows people to practice threat recognition and response. The werewolf game illustrates how predators operate in reality: they blend in, form deceptive bonds, and manipulate perception to avoid detection. Scrivner notes that negative events capture attention more forcefully than positive ones, and threat-related information is perceived as particularly important and reliable. However, this theory has limitations in explaining why the most successful predators continue to evade identification despite our evolutionary preparedness.
#evolutionary-psychology #true-crime-fascination #threat-detection #predatory-behavior #morbid-curiosity
Read at Psychology Today
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