Episode Summary
Executive Summary: The conversation explores morbid curiosity as an adaptive form of threat learning: humans are drawn to scary, violent, disgusting, and supernatural content because it lets them rehearse danger safely. The guest explains how the field was built, identifies four domains of morbid curiosity, and shows links to age, psychopathy, gendered interests, dreams, horror, true crime, and pandemic resilience.
Main Topics: Origins of morbid curiosity research (Priority: 5/5): The guest traces his path from anthropology/forensic science to psychology and describes how paradoxes about human attraction to threat led him into studying scary content and recreational fear. Threat learning as the core mechanism (Priority: 5/5): Morbid curiosity is framed as a way to gain information about danger without incurring the real-world cost, similar to predator inspection in animals and rehearsal in dreams. Four domains of morbid curiosity (Priority: 5/5): He identifies violence, dangerous people/true crime, bodily injury, and the paranormal as distinct but related categories unified by uncertainty and threat detection. Individual differences and predictors (Priority: 4/5): The discussion covers how morbid curiosity varies by age, sex, psychopathy-related traits, and disgust sensitivity, with younger people showing more interest and only modest links to disgust. Horror, true crime, and gendered content preferences (Priority: 4/5): The conversation links true crime, war stories, UFC, and horror to different audience segments and argues that many viewers are learning about threats relevant to their own lives. Horror film structure and zombie appeal (Priority: 4/5): Horror is described as a genre defined by a vulnerable protagonist facing a formidable antagonist; zombies are singled out as especially effective because they combine all four morbid-curiosity domains. Empathy, stigma, and pandemic resilience (Priority: 4/5): The guest argues horror fans are not low-empathy; in fact, empathy helps fuel their interest. He also cites evidence that morbidly curious people coped better psychologically during early COVID.
Key Arguments: Morbid curiosity is adaptive because it lets humans learn about threats from a safe distance, reducing future risk. The central thread across violence, true crime, injury, and paranormal content is uncertainty about what can harm us and how to avoid it. Disgust sensitivity mainly suppresses interest in infectious threats, but it does not fully explain interest in non-infectious injuries. Younger people tend to be more morbidly curious, consistent with the idea that threat learning is most useful earlier in life. Women showed slightly more interest in dangerous people/true crime, while men showed more interest in direct violence; overall sex differences were small. Horror fans are not less empathetic; instead, empathy may intensify identification with the vulnerable protagonist and make horror enjoyable. Morbid curiosity predicted better psychological resilience during the early months of COVID, suggesting practical benefits in novel threat contexts. Zombies work as a highly effective horror device because they combine violence, bodily violation, dangerous intent, and supernatural ambiguity.
Data Points: Domains of morbid curiosity: 4 - Violence, dangerous people, bodily injury, and the supernatural/paranormal. Variance explained by personality model: about 50% - Combined predictors like Big Five/HEXACO, psychopathy, disgust, sex, and age explained roughly half of morbid curiosity scores. Correlation with other curiosity dimensions: small positive correlations (~0.2 to 0.3; one around 0.4) - General curiosity related to morbid curiosity but did not account for it strongly. Age effect: younger people more morbidly curious - Morbid curiosity decreases on average with age. Psychopathy subscale: rebelliousness was the strongest single predictor measured - Among psychopathy facets, rebelliousness correlated most strongly with morbid curiosity. Sex differences: small overall; men more interested in violence, women more interested in dangerous people - Differences appeared in subscales rather than total morbid curiosity. Body-injury disgust finding: non-infectious injuries were more approachable than infectious ones - Tom Kupfer’s dressing/bandage study showed people were willing to touch non-infectious injury dressings more often. COVID study timing: April 2020 - The resilience study was run in the early months of the pandemic. Pandemic outcome: higher resilience, lower anxiety, lower depression - People higher in morbid curiosity reported better adjustment to early COVID stressors. Horror-film study sample: about 600 films - Used to examine archetypal horror character structure.
Pivotal Quotes: "That’s like candy for our minds, right? Like, are you telling me we can reap the benefits of this without having any of the costs?" — Colton Scrivener: Explaining why humans are drawn to threat content as a low-cost learning opportunity. "The thread is threat itself, right? It’s what could possibly harm me? And what do I not know about it?" — Colton Scrivener: Summarizing the common mechanism behind morbid curiosity across different domains. "People rated horror fans as less empathetic, less compassionate. They expected them to be less empathetic and compassionate." — Colton Scrivener: Describing the stigma surrounding horror fandom and the perception that liking horror implies low empathy.
Implications: Morbid curiosity may be a useful, evolved learning system rather than a dark personality flaw. For creators and researchers, it suggests horror/true-crime succeed by safely simulating real threats, and that audience engagement may reflect vigilance, not pathology.
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Chris Williamson in long-form conversation with the world's most interesting people - psychologists, scientists, authors, comedians and entrepreneurs - on life, science, health, fitness, business and philosophy.