Scary Movies And Tv Programs Have Long-Lasting Effects - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), April, 2000

While the short-term effects of watching horror movies or other films and television programs with disturbing content are well-documented among children and teens, a study by researchers Kristen Harrison, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Joanne Cantor, University of Wisconsin, Madison, shows that long-term effects can linger even into adulthood. They found that 90% of the participants (more than 150 college students at Michigan and Wisconsin) reported a media fright reaction from childhood or adolescence. Moreover, about 26% still experience a "residual anxiety."

"These effects were more serious than jumpiness at a slammed door or the need to use a nightlight. They ranged from an inability to sleep through the night for months after exposure to steadfast and continuing avoidance of the situations portrayed in the programs and movies," Harrison points out. The duration of the effects range from less than a week (about 33% of the sample) to more than a year (about 36%).

A wide range of symptoms was reported, including crying or screaming (27%), trembling or shaking (24%), nausea or stomach pain (20%), clinging to a companion (18%), increased heart rate (18%), freezing or feeling of paralysis (17%), and fear of losing control (11%), as well as sweating, chills or fever, fear of dying, shortness of breath, a sense of unreality, dizziness or faintness, and numbness (all less than 10%).

Harrison and Cantor categorized the phobia-producing stimuli into five areas: animals (mammals, insects, reptiles, animal-like aliens, etc.); environmental (fires, floods, earthquakes, storms, water, nuclear holocaust, and other ecological threats); blood/injection/injury (blood, gore, trauma, pain, wounds, needles, and other physical threats to living things); situational (heights, enclosed spaces, and circumscribed locations like doctors' offices); and disturbing sounds/distorted images (loud noises, horrible faces, etc.). The most frequently reported type they found is blood/injection/injury (65% of the sample). One participant said that, in the movie "Jaws," it was not the shark or actual deaths that was frightening, but the blood. "For about two months after the movie, I had nightmares about blood. The nightmares didn't always involve sharks, but always contained gross amounts of blood. To this day, I remain horrified of blood."

Disturbing sounds/distorted images is the other most common type of fright stimulus found in films and TV programming (60%). One participant was scared by the heavy breathing of the killer in the film "Halloween," while several others found the suspenseful music in "Jaws" unnerving. The other three classes of stimuli were reported by a minority of the sample: situational (33%), animals (12%), and environmental (nine percent).

The younger the respondents were when they viewed a scary movie and TV program, the longer-lasting the effects. The study provides little support for the popular notion that children who like thrilling media genres will be better able to handle their effects than those who do not. Further, the average duration of fright effects for participants who viewed frightening media because someone else was watching or wanted to watch was significantly higher than the duration for those who sought out the film or program themselves.

Regardless of what frightened them as children, the participants appeared to know which coping strategies worked best for them. For instance, those younger at exposure relied more heavily on behavioral coping strategies (covering their eyes, leaving the room, hugging a pillow), while those older at the time of viewing used cognitive strategies (reassuring oneself that "it's just a movie" or "this could never happen in real life").

"Many adults have learned to recognize the types of stimuli that frighten them and can choose movies and programs carefully to avoid such content," Harrison notes. "Given that very young children may not yet know what types of stimuli frighten them most, nor do they enjoy the power to choose which media the family will view, they are in special need of protection from exposure to such scary stimuli before coping strategies are necessary."