People enjoy being scared out of their skin in a controlled environment. They will flock to attractions that can guarantee that they will get a fright.
<ul>
<li>Participants in a study reported a significantly higher mood and feeling less anxious and tired directly after their trip through a haunted attraction.</li>
<li>They also reported feeling that they challenged their personal fears and learned more about themselves.</li>
</ul>

Why people want to intentionally scare themselves

Self Improvement

<ul>
<li>Research suggests that going through an extreme haunted attraction provides gains similar to tackling a difficult challenge. There&#39;s a sense of uncertainty, physical exertion, and an obstacle to overcome. On the other side, there is a sense of achievement.</li>
<li>Scary experiences could serve as a recalibration of what should cause stress. After a planned scary experience, difficulties may seem like no big deal in comparison.</li>
<li>Because you&#39;re not in real danger, you can choose to observe your reaction and gain greater insight into yourself.</li>
</ul>

Scary activities make one stronger

Haunted attractions, horror movies and other forms of scary entertainment all share the same components that help to have a fun scary time.
<ul>
<li>First, you have to choose to engage.</li>
<li>Try to gather some friends to engage with you in the activities. This will intensify your own emotional experience and make it more fun. It can also create rewarding social bonds.</li>
</ul>

What it takes to be safely scared

Visiting an extreme haunted house can be delightfully terrifying. 

Why Is it Fun to Be Frightened?

<ul><li>The Excitation Transfer Process.&nbsp;How you feel AFTER the movie.&nbsp; When watching frightening films, the heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases. After the film, the physiological arousal lingers. If you had fun with friends, these positive emotions are intensified. If you did not enjoy the company, negative feelings are intensified.</li><li>People are wired differently. About 10 percent of the population enjoys the adrenaline rush.</li><li>Novelty. Everyone pays attention to anomalies in our environment.</li><li>Gender Socialization.&nbsp;Men often like [scary films] as date movies because women are more likely to seek physical closeness when they’re scared, and men can show off their strength and bravery.</li><li>Some people enjoy the adrenaline rush of being scared while being safe.</li></ul>

Why some people savor scary movies, and others hate them

Some people can't get enough of scary movies. They've seen scores of scary films - over and over. They catch horror flicks on opening night. They have DVD collections at home. Personally, I wouldn't be caught dead watching a scary movie. They freak me out, leaving me unsettled for days -- the images a record player in my mind.

Why Some People Love Horror Movies While Others Hate Them

Halloween originated more than 2,000 years ago. Europe&#39;s Celtic people celebrated their New Year&#39;s Day on November 1. 
On the eve - what we know as Halloween - spirits were believed to walk the Earth as they traveled to the afterlife.

The origins of Halloween

History

According to the American Folklife Center, Celts often wore costumes to confuse spirits. Celts also wore masks or blackened their faces to impersonate dead ancestors.
An early form of trick-or-treating involved Celts, costumed as spirits, to have moved from house to house, exchanging food and drink for silly acts.

Halloween costumes

Samhain, the Celtic peoples New Year&#39;s Day, was changed by the seventh century Pope Boniface IV to All Saint&#39;s Day, or All Hallows&#39; Day. Later it was name Halloween.
European immigrants brought Halloween to the United States, but it only became more known in the 1800s, when Irish-American immigration increased.

All Saint's Day

Some Halloween spook stories continue to surface, although there is little substance behind it.
Examples include satanic cults that sacrifice black cats on Halloween. Another is candy tainted by poisons, needles, or razor blades. There are no substantiated reports of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up while out trick-or-treating.

Halloween Urban Legends

Get the facts on Halloween's history and why we love it so much today.

Halloween: costumes, history, myths, and more

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, in the area that is now Ireland.&nbsp; On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. <div><figure itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject"><meta itemprop="thumbnailUrl" content="https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc3NjU2NDg0NzgzODM5/halloweens-origins.jpg"><meta itemprop="image" content="https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc3NjU2NDg0NzgzODM5/halloweens-origins.jpg"><meta itemprop="uploadDate" content="2012-05-30T15:35:40Z"><meta itemprop="contentRating" content="TV-PG"><meta itemprop="name" content="Halloween's Origins"><meta itemprop="description" content="Timothy Dickinson gives his take on one of our most popular holidays."><meta itemprop="duration" content="PT1M12S"><phoenix-iframe iframe-class="m-video--frame" iframe-title="Halloween's Origins" allow="autoplay" lazy-load="" block-on-gdpr-applicable="" src="https://www.history.com/player/history.html?tpid=21110031&amp;autoplay=false" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" width="598" height="336" playsinline=""></phoenix-iframe></figure></div>

Ancient Origins of Halloween

<ul><li>On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs&nbsp;and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.</li><li>The influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites.&nbsp;In 1000 A.D., the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was probably done to replace the Celtic festival.</li><li>All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas, and eventually, Halloween.</li></ul>

All Saints' Day

The celebration of Halloween was limited in colonial New England, but as&nbsp;the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with Irish immigrants, fleeing the Irish Potato Famine. This helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.

Halloween Comes to America

Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft.

History of Trick-or-Treating

<ul><li>By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide Halloween parties featured entertainments.&nbsp;</li><li>Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. It was an inexpensive way for communities to share in the celebration.</li><li>Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween.</li></ul>

Halloween Parties

“Trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.

All Souls Day and Soul Cakes

Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2019 occurs on Thursday, October 31. It originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.

Halloween

A love of horror movies is associated with an underlying dimension of entertainment preferences, dubbed "the dark factor".Those with dark tastes value intensity, edginess and rebellion. Their personalities lean towards risk-taking, antagonism, imagination, and tough-mindedness.

The 'dark factor'

Some derive enjoyment from negative emotional states, as when enjoying a "good cry", for instance.A <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15506878jobem4402_8#.VjQXS7crJhE">study</a> found that people who liked sad films enjoyed a scene relative to how much sadness it elicited. The stronger the sadness, the higher the enjoyment.

The pleasure paradox

Halloween seems to bring out excesses in&nbsp;costumed children and adults.Several studies revealed that costumed children who were anonymous — by wearing masks for instance — were more likely to take extra candies.&nbsp;In adults, costumed Halloween celebrators tend to have higher blood alcohol readings than people in plain clothes.

Trick or treat

Updated October 31, 2015 15:41:34 Halloween is upon us. The spirits of the departed return to haunt the living and demons roam the land. Predictably, scary movies flood television screens and packs of costumed, sugar-crazed children wander the streets. In many ways, trick or treating and watching horror movies can be puzzling activities.