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Even if you’re not a horror fan yourself, you can’t deny that humans on the whole seem to really like getting scared.
即使你自己不是恐怖迷，你也不能否认，整体上人类好像真的很喜欢被吓。
That’s especially apparent this time of year, what with all the haunted houses and spooky hayrides on offer for Halloween.
每年的这个时候尤其明显，因为万圣节有很多鬼屋和令人毛骨悚然的干草车。
But what is it about fear that draws us in?
但究竟是什么让恐惧吸引了我们？
My guest today is an expert on precisely that.
今天我们的嘉宾是这方面的专家。
Coltan Scrivner is a behavioral scientist at the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark and the Psychology Department at Arizona State University.
科尔坦·斯克里夫纳是丹麦奥胡斯大学娱乐恐惧实验室和亚利桑那州立大学心理学系的行为科学家。
He investigates what he calls the “evolutionary and psychological underpinnings of morbid curiosity and our fascination with the darker side of life.”
他调查了他所谓的“病态好奇心和我们对生活阴暗面的迷恋的进化和心理基础”。
Coltan, thanks so much for coming on to talk today.
科尔坦，非常感谢你今天来到现场。
Yeah, happy to be here.
嗯，很高兴来到这里。
So what got you interested in studying fear?
是什么让你对研究恐惧感兴趣呢？
When I was in graduate school, I just became interested in this idea that people sometimes go and watch violence for fun when, in almost every other case, violence is seen as immoral, is pushed to the edges of society, is punished.
我还在读研究生的时候，就开始对这样一个观点感兴趣：人们有时候看暴力画面是为了好玩，但几乎在所有其他情况下，暴力都是不道德的，暴力的人会被推到社会的边缘，受到惩罚。
But there are very circumscribed cases throughout history and across cultures where violence is not only okay but sometimes celebrated.
但在历史上和文化中，有一些非常有限的案例表明，暴力不仅是可以接受的，有时还会受到赞扬。
And so I started out kind of with that, what seemed like a paradox, there.
这么看，它好像是个悖论。
And over time that kind of evolved into: “Well, people also scare themselves for fun, right? Why do they do that?”
随着时间的推移，这种想法变成了：“嗯，人们也会为了好玩而吓唬自己，对吧？他们为什么要这样做？”
And that kind of meshed with the interest in violence. And over time that sort of evolved into this research program that I have on morbid curiosity.
这种现象与人们对暴力的兴趣相吻合。随着时间的推移，它演变成了我对病态好奇心的研究项目。
So what do we know about morbid curiosity? Why do humans like stuff that scares them or grosses them out?
那我们对病态好奇心了解多少呢？为什么人类会喜欢让他们害怕或恶心的东西？
Well, most people don’t enjoy the feelings of being grossed out, for example.
大多数人都不喜欢被恶心的感觉。
But a lot of people will look if you say, “Oh, my gosh, this is so gross; you have to see this,” right? So it is kind of a weird thing.
但如果你说：“哦，天哪，这太恶心了；你得看看”的话，多数人都会看，这种现象很奇怪。
And, you know, one thing that I’ve found from my research is that a lot of people, especially when it comes to fear, may not necessarily enjoy the feeling of fear itself.
我在研究中发现的一点是，很多人，尤其是涉及到恐惧时，喜欢的可能并不是恐惧本身。
Some people do: adrenaline junkies, for example, people, like, who like skydiving or who like roller coasters or things like that.
有些人喜欢，比如肾上腺素迷，喜欢跳伞或过山车之类的。
And a lot of people—like a lot of horror fans even, for example—actually don’t necessarily enjoy the feeling of being afraid, but they do enjoy the feeling of overcoming that fear ...
很多人，比如很多恐怖片迷，其实并不喜欢害怕的感觉，但他们确实喜欢克服恐惧的感觉……
They enjoy the sort of, you know, self-confidence you get from tackling something difficult.
他们喜欢那种，从解决困难中获得的自信。
And I think, you know, humans see this in other areas of their life, but it’s interesting, too, that it shows up in this sort of entertainment sector as well.
生活中，你也可以在其他领域种看到这一点，但有趣的是，它也出现在娱乐领域。
Are we the only animals who like getting scared on purpose?
我们是唯一喜欢故意受到惊吓的动物吗？
I don’t think so. You know, it’s always hard to tell what other animals enjoy versus don’t enjoy and just sort of—it’s hard to interpret behaviors, right, in that way.
我觉得不是。我们很难分辨其他动物喜欢什么，不喜欢什么，很难用这种方式来解释它们的行为。
But we’re certainly not the only animals that put themselves in scary situations when they don’t have to or watch scary things when they don’t have to.
但我们肯定不是唯一一种在没有必要的时候把自己置于可怕境地的动物，或者在没有必要的时候看可怕的东西。
So for example, if you’re out (in the) Serengeti, you might see some Thomson’s gazelles grazing about, and you might see a cheetah kind of in the background, which is one of their natural predators.
例如，如果你在塞伦盖蒂，可能会看到一些汤姆逊瞪羚在吃草，或许在远处你会看到一只猎豹，这是它们的天敌之一。
And what you’ll see is that—you know, you would expect if—you know, I’m not a gazelle, but if I was a gazelle, I would think, “Okay, if I saw a cheetah, I should probably run every single time,” right?
这时候，你会祈祷：我不是瞪羚，但如果我是瞪羚，我会想，“如果我看到猎豹，每次都要逃跑，”对吧？
But that’s not actually what you see. Instead what you see is that some of the gazelles will actually stop and observe the cheetah.
但现实并非如此。相反，你会发现一些瞪羚会停下来观察猎豹。
And it’s not random which gazelles do this; it’s actually the adolescents and the subadults, so kind of those gazelles who are young and healthy and fit and could escape if something happened but maybe don’t have as much exposure to their natural predators yet.
瞪羚这么做并非偶然；其实是少年期或快成年的瞪羚会这么做，万一发生什么事，这些年轻又健康的瞪羚随时能逃跑，但它们可能还没有那么多的机会接触到它们的天敌。
So the assumption there is that they are trying to learn something about their natural predators because, you know, cheetahs, like most cats, spend about 23 out of 24 hours of the day just lounging, right, and not actually hunting or eating or doing anything else.
所以我们的假设是，它们在试图了解天敌，因为猎豹像大多数猫科动物一样，一天24小时里有23个小时都是懒洋洋的，对吧，不打猎，不吃东西，也不做其他事情。
And so it’d be pretty inefficient for prey animals in general to always run every time they saw a predator.
所以对被捕食的动物来说，每次看到捕食者就跑是非常低效的。
So instead what animals tend to do is gather information about potential threats, in particular their predators.
动物倾向于收集有关潜在威胁的信息，尤其是它们的捕食者。
