Spooky

Nolan and Ryan (2000) asked 30 male and 30 female college students to recount details of a horror film they remembered, and compared the descriptions. They found that males most often described "rural terror" scenarios (fear of strange places and people), accompanied by feelings of anger and frustration. Females described "family terror" (fear of betrayals and stalkings) and described more intense and more frequent feelings of fear than their male counterparts.

The difference may be due to the portrayal of gender in the films. Cowan and O'Brien (1990) found that while men and women were equally likely to be attacked in horror films, the "slashers" were more likely to be male, and female victims were more likely to survive the attack. The reactions may also be an artifact of social roles. Mundorf et al (2004) found that assessment of opposite-sex reaction had a stronger correlation with emotional response than biological gender, although Harris et al's 2000 findings contradicted these results.

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I was surprised that I couldn't find any analysis of whether men and women are afraid of different things, or even what their biggest fears were. Although there is plenty of data on women and violence, I couldn't find any information on whether women were more likely to fear an attack. One piece of social programming that I've always found particularly troubling is the portrait painted of women as natural victims, and men as natural aggressors. Sadly, I can't contradict this assumption with statistics: women do seem to be the victims of violence more often.

I've never had a lot of luck enjoying being frightened. In 2000 I visited a haunted house with some friends and my partner at the time. I was so concerned about staying cool and not jumping when startled that I ended up even more upset than if I'd just allowed myself to get scared. I ended up going home early.

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