Ask Dr. Universe: Why do we find some things scary?
PULLMAN, Wash. – While our fears might be different, we all get scared sometimes.
Vacuums, dogs, and even cucumbers make my hair stand on end. Perhaps for you it’s spiders, the dark, or the thought of monsters under your bed.
My friend Michael Delahoyde is really curious about what freaks us out. As an English professor at Washington State University, he’s even taught a course about monsters.
Delahoyde explained that our brains like to categorize information to help us make sense of our world. But monsters sort of live between different categories.
“We are comfortable with animals. We are comfortable with humans. We’ve got the distinctions down,” Delahoyde said. “But when you have a monster, like a werewolf who is somewhere in the middle, then it freaks us out.”
Read all of this answer from Dr. Universe at https://askdruniverse.wsu.edu/2016/10/26/why-do-we-get-scared/.
A service of Washington State University, Ask Dr. Universe answers some of the most interesting, tough and smart questions from curious kids all around the world.
