1 source 8m ago
Outlast Footage Ties Psychopathic Traits to Fear Enjoyment in Canadian Study
A research team at multiple Canadian universities published a paper on October 10 in Psychological Reports examining why people with stronger psychopathic traits tend to enjoy fear.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Why it matters
Outlast, a 2013 survival horror game, is now the stimulus in peer-reviewed research linking psychopathic traits to fear enjoyment through a sense of invincibility, not boredom.
Key Facts
- The paper is titled "Psychopathy and Fear Enjoyment: The Role of Invincibility and Boredom Proneness" and is scheduled for Psychological Reports.
- Participants watched videos including gameplay footage of the 2013 survival horror game Outlast and rated their emotions.
- The first survey had 825 participants, including 425 undergraduates from two Canadian universities and 400 recruited online.
- Invincibility showed a significant association with psychopathic traits and a mediating effect on small negative emotions toward fear.
- Boredom proneness was associated with psychopathic traits but did not explain enjoying fear in the study.
Two surveys, one with 825 participants, measured psychopathic tendencies and a sense of invincibility, then had participants rate their emotions after watching footage including gameplay of the horror game Outlast. Invincibility showed a significant link to psychopathic traits and helped explain smaller negative reactions to fear.
The study ran two surveys with different samples and question sets. The first drew 425 undergraduates from two Canadian universities and 400 people recruited through a crowdsourcing service. Participants rated their own emotional responses to videos that included Outlast gameplay.
Boredom proneness was tied to psychopathic traits but did not explain why some people enjoy fear, according to the findings. Invincibility, the belief that "I won't get hurt," carried a significant mediating effect, though the authors note mediation does not establish causality.
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