Stuart Fischoff

Stuart Fischoff was a media psychologist who focused particularly upon genres. In fact, he was very much a pioneer in the world of psychology because of his following contributions:
  • founded the first media psychology lab in the world at CSULA
  • co-founded the first journal, the Journal of Media Psychology
  • started the US' first Master's level graduate program in Media Psychology
Fischoff conjured up a list talking about the factors that influence a person's appeal to horror as entertainment. I've picked some of the major ones:

Gender factors and Gender Roles: Being in a movie theatre enhances the power of scary movies because they are usually better enjoyed in the company of others. That's why horror movies are great date movies for teens and young adults - your date can be there to reassure, protect, and defend you against the evil force in the film. Fischoff conducted an experiment in his media psychology lab to study how the sexes behave in theatres while watching horror movies with the same or opposite sex. He found that males show more bravery compared to females, who tend to display more fear, than what they would do normally whilst watching a horror movie with the same sex. This is classic exaggerated and stereotyped gender role playing.

Age Factors: Fischoff's research indicated that young people enjoy horror movies much more compared to older people. Unlike their elders, the younger generation are sensory risk takers, thrill seekers. His research suggested that those in their 60s and older get upset with real and screen violence, and that they want it off their entertainment radar. Results also showed that the older movie goers prefer the classic monsters better, for example Frankenstein, Dracula, King Kong, the Wolf Man etc., as compared with the younger generations' fascination over killing machines like Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees and Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface.

Personality factors: People differ in coping against a given threat. For example, there are sensitizers and repressors - some like to approach or confront fearful things, whilst others prefer to avoid or deny them. The former are more positively excited by scary movies than are the latter. However, a problem with this is that those who happily approach horror movies and don't react sympathetically towards those who are usually killed, could be associated with psychopathy.

Life Style: One of the major reasons we go to scary movies is to be scared. Fischoff believed that if we lead a relatively calm and uneventful lifestyle, we may seek out something that's going to be exciting for us because our nervous system requires periodic revving, just like a high performance engine.

Physiology: People differ in their characteristic degree of reactivity - they could be of a dull, mild or intense degree. Such reactivity differences may be based on heredity, learning, aging, adaption to prevailing levels of fear and excitement, or combinations of these influences. Examples are war correspondents, war photographers, bomb squad volunteers, trapeze performers, mercenaries - people who like to put themselves in harm's war for the arousal jag. The pivotal issue that Fischoff proposed is that we do not go to horror movies to be scared, but to feel excited. We search out extraordinarily intense or novel experiences, and going to watch a horror movies is just a safe way of doing it, as compared to going bungee jumping.
Research indicates that the more negative affect a person reports experiencing during horror films, the more likely they are to say that they enjoy the genre. Studies also suggest that the pleasure of scary movies comes from the relief that follows the heightened fear.

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