Choosing the negative: A behavioral demonstration of morbid curiosity.
PLoS One
; 12(7): e0178399, 2017.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28683147
ABSTRACT
This paper examined, with a behavioral paradigm, to what extent people choose to view stimuli that portray death, violence or harm. Based on briefly presented visual cues, participants made choices between highly arousing, negative images and positive or negative alternatives. The negative images displayed social scenes that involved death, violence or harm (e.g., war scene), or decontextualized, close-ups of physical harm (e.g., mutilated face) or natural threat (e.g., attacking shark). The results demonstrated that social negative images were chosen significantly more often than other negative categories. Furthermore, participants preferred social negative images over neutral images. Physical harm images and natural threat images were not preferred over neutral images, but were chosen in about thirty-five percent of the trials. These results were replicated across three different studies, including a study that presented verbal descriptions of images as pre-choice cues. Together, these results show that people deliberately subject themselves to negative images. With this, the present paper demonstrates a dynamic relationship between negative information and behavior and advances new insights into the phenomenon of morbid curiosity.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Comportamento de Escolha
/
Comportamento Exploratório
Aspecto:
Determinantes_sociais_saude
Limite:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
PLoS One
Assunto da revista:
CIENCIA
/
MEDICINA
Ano de publicação:
2017
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Holanda