Many adults consider the childhood-like experience of being spooked at a haunted home to only a memory.
According to new research, visiting friends is the best way to be scared of this popular attraction in a theme park.
Researchers have found that adult visitors to haunted houses are more likely to experience fear responses including dilated pupils, sweating and rapid heartbeats when attending in a group.
It’s thought that among a group, fear may spread like wildfire to a threat, like a herd of wildebeests being preyed upon by a lion in the wild.
Visitors were put to the test at 17th Door Haunted House in Fullerton, California. This extreme attraction tests visitors’ ‘fight or flight’ reactions.
The study shows that haunted house visitors tend to have faster heart rates when present in a group. Visitors to The 17th Door in California, which is a haunted home.
Sarah M. Tashjian, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (Caltech), led the new research.
Tashjian stated that there are many factors that affect how the human body responds to threats. “We discovered that threat prediction, friend-related emotions and subjective fear all played a role in the body’s response.
Many haunted houses involve sudden audial and visual shocks that cause the body to respond in an instinctive ‘fight or flight’ manner.
Fight or flight is the evolution of the body’s ability to protect itself from or run away from perceived or real threats.
The experts state that “Physiological threats responses can help coordinate defensive reactions to promote safety.” The sympathetic nervous system stimulates “fight or flight” responses.
Because of the ethical and practical limitations of human laboratory experiments, scientists have had difficulty studying real threats to people’s mental or physical health.
Previous studies used scary images, mild electric shocks, or loud noises, but to go a step further, the Caltech team placed volunteers in 17th Door Haunted House, which is not suited to the average fairground visitor and requires every guest to sign a waiver.
As the name suggests, the house consists of 17 rooms with various threats that form an uninterrupted experience, linked to a theme about a dangerous prisoner in a fictitious prison.
Volunteers were placed by Caltech in the 17th Door Haunted House attraction located in Fullerton (pictured).
The 30-minute-long experience will see visitors confront situations such as the fear of being suffocated, inability to escape a speeding car, or being blindfolded and shot with volleys of ammunition from a firing squad.
It is described by one YouTuber as a “extremely painful and graphic haunted home”, while another describes it in the same way: “The most intense haunted place I have ever visited.”
Yelp’s other reviewer said that “If you don’t want to be scared to the core,” there are many haunted homes which are better suited for your needs.
According to the researchers, ‘Many threats were far more dangerous and/or painful than was ethically permissible in US university laboratory experience.
For the study, 156 adult participants went through the haunted house in small groups so researchers could measure their responses to perceived threats.
It was determined that people’s bodies respond differently to threats depending on their social environment (whether family members were nearby), what the threats were (whether they were expected) as well as the individual’s emotions (whether they felt scared).
Participants wore real-time physiological-monitoring wristbands to measure their electrodermal activity – in other words, changes in the resistance of the skin to a small electrical current based on sweat gland activity.
Four factors were examined to determine the electrodermal activity. The two factors were the number of people in the group as well as whether an imminent threat existed.
The other two factors related to one’s own mind – subjective fear and ‘baseline orienting response’, a measure of sensitivity to threat.
At 17th Door Haunted House, visitors encounter situations that mimic the threat of suffocation, the inability to escape an oncoming speeding car and being shot by a volley pellets from a firing squad while blindfolded
Prior to visiting the haunted home, participants had to rate their fear levels on a scale ranging from 1-10. After visiting the haunted house, participants were asked to rate their fear levels on a scale from one to 10.
There was an association found between group membership and “tonic awakening”, which is the body’s general response to stress.
The average physical reaction to the haunted house is higher if participants have more people with whom they can share the experience.
‘We interpreted this to reflect fear contagion – if your friends are around, your body picks up on their signals and has a higher level of arousal even in the absence of specific scares or startles,’ Tashjian said.
The researchers also noted positive associations between unexpected attacks, subjective fear and the frequency of ‘phasic effects’ – rapid changes that the body experiences as it responds to an event.
The study shows that haunted visitors to houses are more likely experience dizziness, sweating and rapid heartbeats when in groups. The haunted house at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, London, England in 2017, is shown.
These responses were more intense for those who experienced the greatest fear during haunted houses.
Tashjian explained that psychological fear is triggered by your body being more alert to the threat.
It was interesting to note that participants who initially responded strongly to the first haunted room showed stronger responses when they moved on.
The response time of participants who were more likely to respond in the first place was shorter.
Tashjian stated that this study was unique from a result perspective because it measured multiple aspects of skin conductance including speed, slow, frequent responses, frequency of response, level of response, and rate of responses.
“Most studies employ only one measure, which makes it difficult to see how dynamic and diverse the sympathetic nervous system can be.
Psychological Science has published the new study.