Horror films make you more resilient during COVID-19 pandemic

Watching scary movies or reading horror stories makes an individual more resilient psychologically during the pandemic, allowing them to practice effective coping strategies, a study has found.

This study recruited 310 individuals and tested whether past and current engagement with thematically relevant media fictions, including horror and pandemic films, could improve preparedness for and psychological resilience toward real-world situations.

Morbid curiosity has been previously associated with horror media use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Armed with this knowledge, the authors then determined whether trait morbid curiosity led to preparedness and resilience during this pandemic through a website survey. The survey included 13 items assessing positive and negative resilience, as well as a set of six questions covering preparedness.

The respondents indicated the extent to which they were fans of horror, zombie, psychological thriller, supernatural, apocalyptic/postapocalyptic, science fiction, alien invasion, crime, comedy, and romance genres in movies and television. They, they were asked about the past and present experience with and interest in films about pandemics. [https://news.psu.edu/story/643151/2021/01/11/research/zombie-movies-prepared-you-pandemic]

Survey results revealed that fans of horror films had greater resilience during the pandemic, while fans of “prepper” genres (ie, alien invasion, apocalyptic, and zombie films) showed both greater resilience and preparedness. In addition, trait morbid curiosity was found to correlate with positive resilience and interest in films about epidemics or contagions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One explanation for why people engage in frightening fictional experiences is that these experiences can act as simulations of actual experiences from which individuals can gather information and model possible worlds,” the authors said.