Plugged In

by Patti M Valkenburg

With the increasing development of (often youth-targeted) entertainment media designed to induce fear, it is not surprising that researchers began to ask questions about how media can induce fear among young audiences. Defined as an immediate response to a real or imaginary danger, fear is accompanied by feelings of physiological unease and by physical responses such as sweating and a pounding heart. Fear is a normal, adaptive response that we require for survival. If we did not experience fear, what would stop us from crossing a street without looking for cars or from swimming in waters with a strong riptide? In other words, from a survival perspective, fear can be healthy. But some of the consequences of media-induced fear are arguably less healthy. For example, among youth, consequences of media-induced fear include sleep problems, depression, and posttraumatic stress.6

  Of course, not all youth experience media-induced fright, nor does all content induce fright in its audience in the same way. In earlier chapters, we noted that child development is one of the strongest predictors of youth’s media preferences. Importantly, child development has also been shown to be a strong predictor of the emotions that children and teens experience when consuming media content. Media-induced fear, in particular, is highly related to development. While the youngest children (under two years of age) typically experience little fear from media content and instead tend to fear concrete objects and situations (strangers, having their mother disappear), by the preschool years, media can and do evoke significant fear among their users.7

  Ages 2–7: Crocodiles under the Bed

  Child-targeted entertainment programs such as The Lion King, Frozen, and Monsters Inc. can induce intense fright reactions in young viewers. Several developmental reasons explain these reactions. First, during this period of cognitive development, children learn how to make “if this, then that” predictions. At the same time, their premature cognitive level makes it challenging for them to consistently discern imaginary from real content. This combination of nascent predictive skills and continued trouble in separating fantasy from reality means that virtually everything is possible in the mind of toddlers and preschoolers. In this “everything is possible” world, imaginary threats can become incredibly scary. Fears of “monsters hiding in closets,” “crocodiles hiding under beds,” and “ghosts in the bathroom” may lead to many sleepless nights for children (and their parents). In fact, the most prevalent fear among toddlers and preschoolers is a fear of large animals (they might eat you up) and insects (they might walk on you). More than 80 percent of five- and six-year-olds indicate that they are afraid of either an animal or an insect. The second most common fear is a fear of monsters. Other common fears include the dark, doctors or dentists, deep water, heights, and everything that looks odd or moves suddenly.8

  Harris suggested that adults can control their emotional reactions to media content by acknowledging that the content is not real. But because everything is possible to children at this age, they are unable to control their emotional reactions by reassuring themselves that what they are viewing is “just pretend.” As a result, a good deal of media content—especially media content that includes upsetting characters (for example, Sid in Toy Story) or situations that are impossible in real life (such as the snow monster in Frozen)—can be very frightening to young children. In fact, early research suggests that nearly 62 percent of children at this age have experienced fear (sometimes long lasting) after exposure to certain media content.9

  While the inability to separate fantasy from reality plays a key role in explaining why young viewers often experience media-induced fear, their perceptual boundedness also contributes to this fear induction.10 As mentioned in chapter 4, children at this age focus much more heavily on perceptual information than on less visible information, such as the role or motives of a character. For example, a character that looks scary but in fact has a positive demeanor will be judged as scary—regardless of his or her psychological attributes. As a result, children at this age often experience extreme fear of scary-looking characters, regardless of their role and motivations. It explains why they fear not only Sid, the legitimately mean character in Toy Story, but also Genie, the good-natured genie in Disney’s Aladdin. Anyone who has seen Aladdin knows that Genie is a friendly and helpful character. Nevertheless, he frightens many young children because what strikes them are his grotesque features and how he explodes out of the lamp and spreads across the entire screen. In other words, even if a character has no evil intentions, a scary-looking character can easily frighten a young child.11

  Finally, characters that demonstrate transformations can also induce fear. As discussed in chapter 4, children at this age struggle with the ability to understand transformations. Transformations are often relied upon in media productions for this young audience. For example, part of the appeal of the superhero genre is that the transformation from human to superhero seems almost magical, and young children often say that the human character is different from his superhero form. Yet researchers have shown that transformations in which a relatively benign character suddenly becomes grotesque looking can be particularly fear inducing for young audiences. This explains why a program like The Incredible Hulk (featuring a male scientist who transforms into a large green-skinned creature that helps people) frightens many young children. In fact, this show was found to be so frightening for children that Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (an American educational television program) aired a special segment to try and explain the Hulk’s motives and costume to young viewers.12 Indeed, as the following recollection shows, children can experience significant and lasting fear from exposure to characters that transform from pleasant to scary looking.

  When I was 5, I was terrified of The Incredible Hulk. That man changing into the Hulk has left a long-lasting impression on me. When in bed at night, I would insist on leaving the door open. I was petrified that the Hulk would come into my room with those white eyes of his. This fear lasted several months. When I see The Incredible Hulk on television now, it just cracks me up.

  Student, female, 21, about The Incredible Hulk13

  In all, the existing research on media-induced fear in this audience shows that youngsters can experience fear after viewing and using media. For children between the ages of two and seven, this fear seems to stem from their difficulty in separating reality from fantasy, their perceptually bounded judgments, and their inability to understand transformations. The question then becomes how can we limit these fearful experiences? For media producers, this involves limiting the use of fearful characters and scenes in media content designed for this audience. It also involves informing parents about potentially fearful scenes so that they can implement strategies to offset fear. For example, although cognitive reassurance strategies (telling children, “This content is not real”) have been shown to be largely ineffective for this age group, noncognitive reassurance strategies such as fast-forwarding through a particularly frightful scene, holding the child on the lap, or giving the child his or her cuddly toy have been shown to be effective.14 If parents view content ahead of time or with their young child, the fearful emotions that media content may (unintentionally) induce can be prevented or mitigated.

  Ages 7–11: Earthquakes and Burglars

  From about age seven, children’s fear of imaginary threats declines. In fact, by the time they are eight, their self-reported fear of monsters has declined by nearly half.15 This decrease does not, however, mean they are not experiencing fear. Indeed, this group of youth reports more media-induced fear than their younger peers. Perhaps not surprisingly, given their increasingly concrete-operational thinking abilities, this age group begins to show fear of getting sick, suffering physical harm, and losing people they love. They now are frightened by concrete, realistic threats such as accidents, kidnappings, burglaries, and bombings. As the following quotation highlights, frightening (adult-directed) content can cause lasting fear.

  I don’t remember the title of the movie, but there was a plague of ants in a town. Every
thing, people and animals, even elephants were being attacked and eaten. First the arms. Then the head and finally the body. Running was futile . . . Afterwards I often dreamed that I was being crushed by something that grew ever larger, just like the group of ants that got bigger and bigger. My aversion to insects may well be because of this film. Even a single ant on the kitchen work top will start my heart pounding.16

  Student, female, 25

  Despite the numerous fearful experiences that youth of this age report, they (perhaps somewhat paradoxically) also report enjoying scary content. For example, the Canadian classic Are You Afraid of the Dark?—a television program in which young teens share ghost stories around a campfire—was such a commercial success that it was revived for a second iteration. Similarly, programs such as The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour as well as movies such as the Harry Potter franchise have also experienced commercial success with this audience. Given that youth of this age enjoy scary media content, and yet report experiencing (sometimes long-lasting) fear from it, researchers have asked what types of strategies may help offset this fear. Results indicate that cognitive reassurance strategies are reasonably effective, thanks to children’s ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.17 For example, youth of this age report that telling themselves that the content is not real (“That’s not blood, it’s just ketchup”) as well as talking to their parents about the content are effective ways to reduce media-induced fear.

  Ages 12 and Up: Horror Movies, Wars, and the Greenhouse Effect

  In chapter 6, we discussed how adolescence is a period in which the brain’s dopamine system changes. When adolescents have an exhilarating experience, their dopamine levels (that is, the pleasure reward system of the brain) shoot up higher than the same experience would induce in children and adults.18 As a result of this change, teens often seek exhilarating experiences—which frequently include horror-based films, television, and games. Indeed, teens are much more interested than their younger peers in horror content, and they experience media-induced fear more positively.19 Given this preference, it is unsurprising that the commercial market is filled with entertainment content designed to get teens’ dopamine system flowing—television programs such as Supernatural, The Originals, and Teen Wolf, and movies such as The Gallows and the Scream franchise.

  Of course, movies and television programs are not the only way that adolescents find horror. In fact, for (male) teens in particular, the video game market equals or surpasses movies and television programs as a source of frightening content. In general, games are probably even more effective than television or movies at arousing intense emotions. Movie viewers typically have no control over what happens. Their fear and other emotions are evoked mainly by the movie’s shock effects and grotesque images, and by their own feelings of empathy with characters. Games are like movies in that respect, but differ in the amount of control that players have over what happens. Unlike movies, games may suddenly put players in control of threatening situations over which they previously had no power. Gamers are therefore in a constant state of heightened vigilance and engagement, since they might have to respond instantly to a threat at any moment.20

  Many games, including survival horror games such as Silent Hill and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, make use of the first-person perspective, which means that the player sees everything through the eyes of the controlled game character and explores all the highways and byways in the game as that character. Other horror games use the third-person perspective, in which the player sees the body of the controlled game character. For example, in so-called over-the-shoulder games, the player is positioned directly behind the character. In both types of games, a gamer’s experience of intense emotional engagement can be recalled long after gameplay subsides:

  You know, somewhere . . . in the remake of Part 1 for the GameCube console—I remember this so well—there was this corridor with all kinds of mirrors. At a certain point I saw something or someone moving in a mirror off in the distance. I didn’t know whether it was a zombie or a curtain blowing in the breeze, but it was something. The shitty thing was that I had to go down that corridor to get anywhere, so I sat there giving myself a pep talk, telling myself “Go on, walk down that fucking corridor!” It turned out to be nothing . . . That was a big relief, but three seconds later I heard something crash through a door behind me, and there was this grunting, snorting zombie running at me. I almost died of shock on the spot and had to pause the game to give myself a chance to recover.

  Student, male, 22, reflecting on playing Resident Evil21

  When it comes to the types of content that elicit fear, teens continue to fear many of the same things they did during middle childhood. But with their increased ability to think abstractly, they also fear abstract subjects that are neither visible nor tangible, for example, political issues, economic issues, wars, and nuclear weapons (see also chapter 6). This is well illustrated in a study by Joanne Cantor and colleagues, in which they investigated children’s and adolescents’ responses to a made-for-TV movie titled The Day After. The movie dramatized the fallout of a nuclear attack on a small town in the United States. Results indicated that, after viewing, adolescents were significantly more distressed and fearful than their younger peers.22 The researchers argued that the movie’s emotional impact came mainly from speculation about the possible destruction of Earth, an abstract concept beyond children’s comprehension. The ability to perceive danger depends in part on a person’s knowledge and experience. Both children and adults find an animal attack frightening because it invokes instinctive human responses to rapid advances, sudden or odd movements, and loud noises. Abstract threats such as a nuclear war, however, require a certain level of abstract thinking, which develops only in adolescence (see also chapter 6).

  Why We Like Fears and Tears

  There are legitimate concerns associated with children’s fright reactions to media (for example, anxiety, sleep challenges). But we know that many children and teens enjoy the thrill of being scared. Many of us can similarly recall enjoying tearjerkers such as Titanic and Atonement. Although it may seem paradoxical, the need to witness violent, fight-inducing, or tragic events is deeply rooted in human nature. We need only recall the popularity of the gladiator spectacles in Roman amphitheaters two thousand years ago. The gladiators—most of them prisoners or slaves—fought battles to the death against one another or wild animals. In many cases, they were ripped apart by lions or crocodiles while tens of thousands of spectators roared with excitement.

  The Tragedy Paradox

  Why do we enjoy watching scary or sad events, whether in real life or in the media? There are few things as paradoxical as watching scary or sad events. On the one hand, movies and television programs can scare us badly or make us feel very sad. At the same time, we often enjoy this experience. Indeed, the sadder or scarier a movie or show is, the more some of us enjoy it.23 Philosophers call this phenomenon the tragedy paradox, which seems to apply to both adults and children. For example, in one of our studies more than 50 percent of children who reported being scared by media content in the past year simultaneously also reported “kind of liking” scary scenes, and nearly 8 percent said they “really like” quivering in front of the screen.24 This tragedy paradox is particularly common among boys and teens, who more frequently seek sensation in their daily life.25

  The tragedy paradox has puzzled scholars and philosophers for centuries. Ancient Roman poets such as Lucretius marveled at the tragedy paradox: “Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation; not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant.”26 In other words, Lucretius believed that humans need to experience tragedy because it makes them acutely aware of their own good fortune. Nearly two millennia later, the social psychologist Leon Festinger called this process downward social comparison, theo
rizing that people can feel better about themselves or their situations by comparing them to a person or situation that is ostensibly “worse off.”27

  Excitation Transfer Theory

  Although downward social comparison offers a plausible explanation for the tragedy paradox, Dolf Zillman, a media psychologist, is credited with developing a theoretical account, which he called excitation transfer theory, to help explain the tragedy paradox. Although we first came across this theory in our discussion of media violence effects (chapter 7), excitation transfer theory was developed to explain why people enjoy viewing frightening media content.28 The theory assumes that every emotion (fear, anger, or pleasure) brings about the same state of physical arousal. While that arousal may vary in intensity, its quality is essentially the same for each emotion. The theory further assumes that when two physically arousing events occur in succession, the arousal caused by the first event may intensify the arousal caused by the second.

  What does this have to do with media entertainment? If we view something frightening, for example, a murder scene, then our fear response puts us in a state of physical arousal. Once the frightening scene ends, perhaps because the victim escapes, we feel another emotion, relief. Because we are still in a state of heightened physical arousal when experiencing relief, and because that arousal is transferred to the new emotion, the sense of relief is especially intense. In other words, people who are scared by something in media entertainment will feel an even greater sense of relief and satisfaction when the danger has passed. Excitation transfer theory posits that it is precisely the arousal-intensified sense of relief that makes viewing frightening and violent content strongly appealing.

  It’s Not Just Chills and Thrills—There Is Meaning Too

  Although excitation transfer theory offers some theoretical input about why we enjoy the tears and fears that media can bring, media psychologists have continued to grapple with understanding the role of emotions in viewers’ selection and experience of media entertainment. For example, a good deal of research in the 1990s looked at the opportunities offered by media entertainment for escapism and mood management. Proponents of escapism suggested that people sought out entertainment in order to feel happy and help them forget their everyday troubles for a while. Mood management theorists extended this idea, positing that audiences were constantly trying to regulate their mood in order to maximize a good mood (such as pleasure) and minimize a bad one (such as sadness).29 People who feel exhausted might select comedic entertainment in hopes of improving their mood, while those feeling particularly stressed might opt for more soothing content.