First scream, then laugh: scientists tell how to scare people correctly

Researchers are coming up with a theory on how to scare people. According to scientists, people often scream and then laugh when they are frightened.

Such jumps in emotions are explained by the fact that low-quality horror stories can cause laughter. However, it is primarily the surprise that causes fear and screaming, The Guardian writes.

Many people like to scare their friends not only on Halloween, but at every opportunity. And videos with such pranks are extremely popular on the Internet and gain millions of views, DailyMail writes.

However, the researchers emphasize that to really cause fear in a person, you need to think through your prank well. Because the vast majority of such pranks make people laugh, which, however, in the first seconds can cause a scream due to surprise.

A team of researchers studied data from 100 online videos with scary pranks, finding that successful pranksters tended to amplify the stimuli their victims were exposed to, for example, by targeting common phobias.

"Watching a video of a complete stranger falling victim to a scary prank may not scare the viewer on the other side of the screen because they are socially different people. Therefore, online pranksters should embellish their pranks with interesting, inclusive phobias to get a bigger reaction," said Mark He-Knudsen, a PhD and humor researcher at the University of Denmark who led the study.

He-Knudsen believes that his findings can be useful for comedians. "The main lesson is to know your audience and adapt your fears to them accordingly. Don't dress like a serial killer and don't hide in your grandmother's closet. But simply walking up to your friend and saying "Boo!" is not the best option either. You need to predict what level of fear can raise the level of tension," the researcher says. But the scientist emphasizes that one should not go overboard. You need to scare in such a way that you can all laugh at this prank together later.

"But when you laugh, invite your 'frightened' friends to laugh with you so that they don't feel like they are being made fun of. Otherwise, the situation will be tense," summarized Mark He-Knudsen.

"Many people, including scary actors, believe that more fear is always better for the person being scared. However, research shows that this is not the case. Instead, people are looking for a sweet spot between fear and laughter, where pleasure is maximized," added Dr. Coltan Skrivner, a researcher at the Recreational Fear Laboratory at Aarhus University.

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