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Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient 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. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study (n = 310) tested whether past...

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Autores principales: Scrivner, Coltan, Johnson, John A., Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Jens, Clasen, Mathias
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7492010/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32952249
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110397
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author Scrivner, Coltan
Johnson, John A.
Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Jens
Clasen, Mathias
author_facet Scrivner, Coltan
Johnson, John A.
Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Jens
Clasen, Mathias
author_sort Scrivner, Coltan
collection PubMed
description 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. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study (n = 310) tested whether past and current engagement with thematically relevant media fictions, including horror and pandemic films, was associated with greater preparedness for and psychological resilience toward the pandemic. Since morbid curiosity has previously been associated with horror media use during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also tested whether trait morbid curiosity was associated with pandemic preparedness and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that fans of horror films exhibited greater resilience during the pandemic and that fans of “prepper” genres (alien-invasion, apocalyptic, and zombie films) exhibited both greater resilience and preparedness. We also found that trait morbid curiosity was associated with positive resilience and interest in pandemic films during the pandemic. Taken together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to frightening fictions allow audiences to practice effective coping strategies that can be beneficial in real-world situations.
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spelling pubmed-74920102020-09-16 Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic Scrivner, Coltan Johnson, John A. Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Jens Clasen, Mathias Pers Individ Dif Article 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. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study (n = 310) tested whether past and current engagement with thematically relevant media fictions, including horror and pandemic films, was associated with greater preparedness for and psychological resilience toward the pandemic. Since morbid curiosity has previously been associated with horror media use during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also tested whether trait morbid curiosity was associated with pandemic preparedness and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that fans of horror films exhibited greater resilience during the pandemic and that fans of “prepper” genres (alien-invasion, apocalyptic, and zombie films) exhibited both greater resilience and preparedness. We also found that trait morbid curiosity was associated with positive resilience and interest in pandemic films during the pandemic. Taken together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to frightening fictions allow audiences to practice effective coping strategies that can be beneficial in real-world situations. Elsevier Ltd. 2021-01-01 2020-09-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7492010/ /pubmed/32952249 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110397 Text en © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Scrivner, Coltan
Johnson, John A.
Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Jens
Clasen, Mathias
Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
title Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Pandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort pandemic practice: horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7492010/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32952249
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110397
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