They Who Fear Together: Can Recreational Fear Bring Us Closer?
Fear is aversive, yet people seek it recreationally. Why?
Posted April 1, 2026 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D.
Human beings are social creatures, and the presence of others often defines or augments the meaning and pleasure we derive from our activities. This would not be surprising regarding positive events, such as concerts or moviegoing, yet psychological research has shown that the rule holds true for negative events as well. In fact, In a classic early demonstration of this, Schachter (1959) found that participants who were anticipating painful electric shocks overwhelmingly chose to wait with other anxious individuals rather than alone. Anxiety and fear , it appears, may serve to increase our affiliation motivation . Misery, in other words, doesn’t just love company, it also loves miserable company. This finding has since been replicated several times.
Yet the social impact of fear appears to extend beyond mere affiliation. Another classic study found that men who were made to cross a shaky, fear-inducing suspension bridge rated a female interviewer who approached them at the other side as more attractive than men who crossed a stable bridge. Fear has also been shown to be susceptible to social contagion processes—we can catch others’ fear, and in doing so feel closer to them.
These findings point to a seeming paradox: While fear is generally considered aversive, it is nevertheless sought after recreationally—think: haunted houses, roller coasters, and horror film experiences.
It appears that people seek and enjoy recreational fear experiences, not despite, but because of the fear. This phenomenon suggests that fear in a controlled setting (which eliminates actual danger) may serve adaptive functions. The ordeal-simulation hypothesis looks to explain this by arguing “that simulations of high-intensity situations can improve chances of survival in real life,” It may do so in part by increasing shared arousal and consequently group cohesiveness . For example, hand-holding a close partner during a threat was found to attenuate neural alarm responses, as touch-induced oxytocin release synchronizes arousal levels, thus reinforcing group cohesion.
Recently, psychologists have been interested in one particular aspect of this phenomenon: how recreational fear impacts interpersonal relationships. People, after all, often choose such recreational fear experiences for their friend group outings or romantic dates. It stands to reason that they do so because these experiences are perceived to facilitate bonding in some way. But do they? And How? Systematic evidence to this effect has been scarce, but a recent (2025) study by University of Florida psychologist Jane Wiley and colleagues sought to address these questions.
The authors conducted five separate yet related studies across three seasons at a commercial haunted attraction . The researchers obtained pre- and post-experience responses anonymously from participants to assess their reports on increased closeness as related to levels of fear. The first two studies examined dyads with high baseline closeness to see whether shared fear further enhanced their intimacy . Studies 3 and 4 examined the same question in low-closeness dyads. The fifth, qualitative interview study examined participants’ subjective experiences with regard to these questions. Data were collected over three years (2022-2024) from a total of 3,831 participants (77.5% aged 18–34, 53.6% female).
Results from the first study showed that, on average, participants tended to agree that the haunted house experience brought them closer to their companion. Study two largely replicated the first one, finding that more self-reported fear predicted more subjective post-experience reported closeness. Yet, while participants reported feeling closer post-experience, an overall analysis of pre- to post-dyadic changes in closeness yielded insignificant results. The researchers suspected that for these already well-connected dyads, a ceiling effect may have been in play, suppressing changes in closeness.
Study 3 looked to address this limitation by asking participants to rate others to whom they were not very close. Results were largely similar. Taken together, “Studies 1–3 suggest that recreational fear is associated with subjective perceptions of increased closeness across a range of preexisting relationship types.” However, these findings relied on retrospective self-report measures and subjective impressions of closeness, which leaves open the question of whether and how these experiences “translate into measurable pre-to-post changes in feelings of closeness.”
To address this question, Study 4 sought to replicate Study 2 by examining whether “the transient arousal of shared fear-for-fun, apparently associated with retrospective impressions of bonding, translates into observable shifts in relational impressions in real time.” Results showed that, as in previous studies, fear consistently predicted perceptions of enhanced closeness. The authors note, however, that the change was small (0.21 on a 7-point scale).
The first four studies in effect produced a paradox: While consistently showing the predictive power of fear on perceptions of increased closeness, they failed to produce sizable pre-to-post changes in reported closeness. In other words, participants “seem to be telling us that they believe that the experience is bringing them closer to the people with whom they experienced it. Yet, participants’ baseline and postexperience closeness ratings remain relatively stable.”
These findings raise a question about what contextual factors may shape the effect of fear on bonding. To explore this question, the researchers undertook a fifth, qualitative study, conducting face-to-face interviews with 20 participants following their completion of the haunted attraction and quantitative survey. The analysis of the interview transcripts revealed several themes, most notable among them is “the importance of postexperience processing.” Those who have the time to discuss their experience before quantifying it are more likely to report increased closeness.
In other words, it appears that to foster real shifts in closeness, some post-event processing of the scary, novel, and exciting event is needed. This aligns with findings from various other areas within psychology, showing that the stories we tell (ourselves and others) about experiences, rather than the experiences themselves, decide how the experience will affect us and our relationships.
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Noam Shpancer, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Otterbein University and a practicing clinical psychologist in Columbus, Ohio.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.