What does it feel like to be scared by a girl's scream when watching a horror movie?

Audit expert: Sun Tao

National Psychological Counselor

Horror movies often create a sense of terror for the audience through images, sounds, psychology, atmosphere and other elements, making people feel as if they are experiencing the fear of the characters in the play.

In many cases, when a scary scene in a movie happens, the screams of the actresses in the movie (and sometimes the female audience outside the movie) will make people feel particularly terrified. Some friends even think that the screams of the female companions around them are more terrifying than the plot in the movie.

The content of horror movies is enough to make people feel scared and frightened, but why is it said that the most frightening thing is "women's screams"? There are three key words here: screams, horror, and women. Let's interpret them one by one today.

Why do people scream?

First, we need to understand what screaming is and why people scream.

Screaming is usually the first reaction of people when they are frightened. When the human body feels fear, the process of secreting adrenaline will speed up, resulting in accelerated heartbeat, difficulty breathing, etc. At this time, people will release the pressure caused by excessive secretion of adrenaline by screaming. This is an instinctive behavior. This behavior can stabilize the internal environment of humans in emergency situations and increase their reaction ability.

In the process of human evolution, sound is an important medium of communication within the group. There are many types of communication sounds, in addition to the ordinary sounds needed in daily life, there is also a kind of warning sound when facing danger.

Source: pixabay

As a sound with a higher frequency and harsher ear, screams convey a more warning message to the group than ordinary sounds, making a greater contribution to the survival of the group. In contrast, groups that are better at sending warning messages have more time to react when facing danger and are more agile. According to the theory of evolution, the survival of the fittest, we who are left in the evolution of nature are the descendants of ancestors who are better at screaming, which is one of the reasons why humans scream when they are frightened.

Why are screams so frightening?

So why do screams make people feel scared?

The fear produced by screaming is a characteristic unique to humans, which is related to the structure of the human brain. There are many glands in the human brain that sense changes in the surroundings and send instructions to the body to respond accordingly. **Among them, the amygdala plays an important role in human perception, emotions, feelings and memory, and is responsible for sensing danger and fear.

Source: pixabay

When the eyes see scary things or scenes, they transmit the message of "fear" to the brain. The brain is the nerve center of the human body, and sends corresponding instructions to the body through the information perceived by the eyes. Among them, the amygdala, a gland in the brain, processes the "information", releases corresponding substances, and transmits them to various parts of the body, causing people to have physical reactions such as screaming and trembling.

When people hear screams, their brains sense danger or fear, and the amygdala will also react accordingly to warn the body. In the long process of human evolution, hearing screams representing danger will cause people to have corresponding fear, which has led to the development of the feeling of "fear" and the corresponding stress response, allowing the group to survive from generation to generation.

Therefore, the trait of "feeling fear when hearing screams" has also been retained in the physical characteristics of humans.

Why are women more likely to scream?

According to relevant research, women have higher emotional susceptibility than men when facing moderate negative stimuli. Emotional susceptibility refers to the degree to which humans are affected by emotions when performing cognitive activities.

Women are a group of people who are easily emotionally sensitive, which may be determined by their special advantage in negative emotional susceptibility. That is to say, women's emotions are more easily affected by life events, and even if these sudden events do not carry any emotional color, they will attract more attention from women.

Source: pixabay

On the other hand, there are gender differences in the effect of negative emotion regulation. Men are better at using expression suppression strategies than women. **This can be understood as men are not easy to express their emotions through voice when facing panic, while women, on the contrary, are better at expressing their inner activities through voice, thereby keeping themselves stable in the environment.

In summary, on the one hand, it is because women are more sensitive to special emotions, and on the other hand, it is because men tend to restrain themselves when expressing their emotions, which leads to women being more likely to express their emotions through screaming when they feel fear.

Other Scenarios That Might Make You Scream

The human scream is not just about fear.

In life, we also find that people scream when they feel excitement, pain, and other emotions. For example, people may scream after winning a big prize; they may scream when they experience exciting rides such as roller coasters in an amusement park; they may scream when they see the team they support win the championship; and they may also scream when they are in extreme pain.

Roller coaster source: pixabay

As mentioned earlier, the amygdala in the brain releases substances that cause people to behave in a fearful manner. Therefore, in a series of complex environments that cause people to react, different environments are likely to cause the human body to produce the same reaction - screaming.

As mentioned earlier, in addition to representing fear, human screams may also include emotions such as pain, anger, joy, and sadness.

Related research shows that humans may be the only ones who use screams to express positive emotions, and screams that express excitement have the ability to restore people to a neutral state emotionally, helping humans to calm down in ecstasy and high excitement, find the best judgment, and avoid excessive happiness that makes people lose vigilance. **This characteristic is likely developed by humans in a complex social environment.