Grunge Template

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The Psychology of Fear Exploring the Roots
ofOur Fatal Attraction
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Whats on the menu?

• Fear as emotion
• Physical manifestations
• What do Americans fear
• Why do we like this stuff so much
• Applying the psychology of fear

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Fear as Emotion let me assert my firm belief
that the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert
retreat into advance.
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Psychology of Fear

• Psychology
• the science of mind and behavior
• (Merriam-Webster)
• fear (fîr)
• A feeling of agitation and dread caused by the
  presence or imminence of danger. (American
  Heritage Medical Dictionary)

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What is fear?

• Bodys way of avoiding injury and death
• Fear (stress) long term weakens immune system
• Basic emotion shared by all animals
• All animals fear but we have more fears than any
  other animal
• We actually fear fear
• Fear pain pleasure
• Influenced by our culture
• Fear can be innate or learned
• Fear is contagious
• We are born and will probably die in fear and pain

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The experts weigh in

• Aristotle, 384 BC 322 BC
• Charles Darwin, 1872
• Freud, 1800s
• Walter Cannon, 1915
• John B. Watson, 1920
• Landis Hunt, 1930s
• Zuckerman, 1979
• Zillman, 1986

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What Do We Fear?Fear. Its the oldest tool of
power. If youre distracted by fear of those
around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions
of those above.Agent Fox Mulder, The X-Files
(Season Two Blood)
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Our Language of Fear
Uncertainty
Dread
Horror
Paranoia
Fright
Fear
Panic
Anxious
Terror
Trepidation
Unease
Nervousness
Worry
Apprehension
Shock
Stress
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What Scares Us
Pinhead
Jason
Freddy K.
Dr. Satan
Deformity
The dark
Captn Spaulding
Crime
Difference
Disease
Hannibal Lector
Snakes
Spiders
Tunnels
Heights
death
Aliens
Failure
Clowns
Michael Myers
Dentists
Public speaking
The economy
Water
Animals
Rejection
Chucky
Demons
Enclosed spaces
Isolation
Captn Howdy
Sharp objects
Chainsaws
Norman Bates
Dick Cheney
Michael Jackson
The Candyman
Blue Man Group
Shock rockers
Jack Torrance
Machines
Jigsaw
Leatherface
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We are Prey

• Violence is a part of our species. It is all
  around us, and it is in us. As the most powerful
  people in history, we have climbed to the top of
  the world food chainFacing not one single enemy
  or predator who poses to us any danger of
  consequence, weve found the only prey left
  ourselves.
• Gavin DeBecker
• The Gift of Fear Other Survival SignalsThat
  Protect Us From Violence

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You cant kill the bogeyman

• Children manifest fear _at_ 7 months
• Fears change as a child ages
• Girls report more fears than boys
• Up to five years
• Noise
• Strange objects
• Pain
• Falling
• Unexpected movement
• Animals
• The dark

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And the survey says

• 2005, Gallup poll
• Terrorist attacks 8
• Spiders 7
• Death 7
• Being a failure 5
• War 5

• Heights 5
• Crime 3
• Being alone 3
• The future 3
• Nuclear war 3

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And the survey says 2

• Girlz Top 10
• Being raped
• AIDS
• Unable to breathe
• Kidnapped
• Threatened w/gun
• Myself dying
• Murders
• Hit by car
• Falling from high places
• Drive-by shooting

• Boyz Top 10
• AIDS
• Unable to breathe
• Myself dying
• Bad drugs
• Threatened w/gun
• Family member dying
• Hit by car
• Nuclear war
• Girlfriend pregnant
• Kidnapped

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And the survey says 3

• 2003 Money on-line subscriber poll
• US economy 59
• Rising health care costs 57
• Stock market 53
• Iraq war 52
• Federal deficit 44
• North Korea 41
• Terrorist attack in the U.S. 38
• Rising oil prices 38
• Corporate corruption 36
• Rising unemployment 36
• State and local budget cuts 34

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Our culture of fear

• The Culture of Fear Barry Glassner
• Give us a happy ending and we write a new
  disaster story.
• If it bleeds it leads
• Crime (Truth dropped significantly)
• Disease (Truth we live longer than ever)
• Politicians (Truth are full of shit)
• Americans (Truth are way too worried about the
  wrong stuff)

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Craziest Mofos in the Jungle

• At the bottom, you see, we are not Homosapiens
  at all. Our core is madness. The prime
  directive is murder. What Darwin was too polite
  to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the
  earth not because we are the smartest, or even
  the meanest, but because we have always been the
  craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the
  jungle. Stephen King, Cell

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Physical Manifestationsof Fear for the blood
is the life. Deuteronomy 1223
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Our big brains

• Evolving for ½ billion years
• Fear systems allow us to avoid pain/death
• 3 pounds of mystery in a 140 pound package

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Three fear systems

• Limbic
• Amygdala
• Cerebral cortex

Cerebral cortex
Limbic
Yummy brains
Amygdala
Brainstem
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Limbic

• Alligator brain
• Alarm system
• Primitive
• Fight or flight
• Emotions start here and move to the Cerebral
  Cortex

Limbic
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Amygdala

• Part of Limbic
• Stores images
• Remembers your fears
• Linked tosense of smell

Amygdala
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Cerebral Cortex

• Rational brain
• Grown over expanded around the Limbic
• Not fully developed until our 20s

Cerebral cortex
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This is Your Brain on Fear
ACTION Fight or Flight
Limbic
Cerebral Cortex
Memories
Five senses
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This is your body on fear

• Emotional expression varies but biochemical
  response does not
• Blood is diverted to large muscles
• Blood moves internal from the skin
• BP increases
• Adrenalin flood

• Rapid breathing
• Eyes widen
• Sweating
• Dry mouth
• Trembling

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Fear has mass appealIf one thinks the
unthinkable things and imagines the unimaginable
thingsyou gain some control over it.Thats the
trick. If you dont think about it you cant
haveany control over it whatsoever. If you
think about it you atleast have the illusion of
control. David Cronenberg
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We pay to be scared

• 2009 show me the money
• January horror flicks - 100 million
• Friday the 13th (2/13) 45 million 4 days
• March
• Last House on the Left 14 million
• Haunting in CT 23 million
• Monsters vs. Aliens 59 million
• 2007 33 million people attended haunted
  attractions
• We are part of a 5-7 billion dollar industry
  (9 is spent on haunted attractions)

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Top 5 grossing horror flicks

• I see dead people.
• The Sixth Sense (1999) 294 million
• Were going to need a bigger boat.
• Jaws (1975) 260 million
• Let Jesus fuck you.
• The Exorcist (1973) 232 million
• Houses dont kill people. People kill people.
• The Amityville Horror (1979) 87 million
• Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Meaow. Here Jonesy.
• Alien (1979) 81 million

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Monsters attract us

• Our culture is fascinated with deviance
• Bad behavior by proxy
• Allows us to destroy the outsider
• Sensation seeking
• As art or social commentary
• Tap our most basic biological terrors

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Fear Life

• Here is the final truth of horror movies They
  do not love death, as some have suggested they
  love life. They do not celebrate deformity but
  by dwelling on deformity, they sing of health and
  energy. By showing us the miseries of the
  damned, they help us to rediscover the smaller
  (but never petty) joy ofour own lives. They are
  the barbers leeches of the psyche, drawing not
  bad blood but anxietyfor a little while
  anyway.
• Stephen King, Danse Macabre

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Applying thepsychology of fear There is no
terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of
it. Alfred Hitchcock
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Stephen Kings Fear Categories

• Terror
• Psycho
• Halloween
• The Blair Witch Project
• Horror
• Jeepers Creepers
• The Ring
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Gross Out
• Night of the Living Dead
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
• Hostel

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SKs Fear Categories Two

• Terror
• Dark
• Claustrophobia
• Hype
• Themes
• Horror
• Actors ROCK
• Animatronics
• Gross Out
• Bloody FX
• Realism

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Questions?