Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Coltan Scrivner (on morbid curiosities)

December 10, 2025

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  • Humans are drawn to morbid curiosity, which serves the ultimate purpose of self-protection by providing safe opportunities to learn about danger, a concept supported by animal predator inspection behavior. 
  • The enjoyment derived from scary experiences peaks at a moderate level of fear (around a 7 or 7.5 out of 10), contrary to marketing that often pushes for the 'scariest thing ever.' 
  • Morbid curiosity is categorized into four domains: the minds of dangerous people (like true crime/conspiracies), the act of violence, bodily injuries (like rubbernecking), and paranormal danger (ghosts/aliens). 
  • Morbid curiosity, contrary to popular myth, does not lead to violent behavior, though excessive consumption of true crime can create a misled belief about the likelihood of negative events occurring. 
  • Bodily injuries, especially severe ones like decapitation, serve as powerful cues for danger because they imply an agentic, strong, and potentially still-present threat, unlike minor injuries or natural occurrences. 
  • Dreaming, potentially an ancient form of threat simulation, suggests that morbid curiosity has deep evolutionary roots, as evidenced by the complex cognitive and physical machinery required for dreaming across diverse species like humans and octopuses. 
  • The discussion touches on how societal embedded struggles influence reactions to displays of wealth across different ethnicities. 
  • The speaker exhibits a high degree of commitment to personal traditions, such as using the Pantone color of the year as a phone background, which they equate to a mechanism similar to addiction in its need for consistent feeling. 
  • The hosts took a Morbid Curiosity Test, revealing the speaker's highest score in the 'Violence' domain (5.67) and a lower score in the 'Paranormal' domain (2.33). 

Segments

Guest Introduction and Book Overview
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(00:00:13)
  • Key Takeaway: Coltan Scrivner is an expert on morbid curiosity, authoring the book Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away.
  • Summary: Coltan Scrivner, a psychologist and researcher, is introduced as an expert on morbid curiosity, horror, and true crime. His book explains why humans are drawn to morbid subjects. This attraction is ultimately rooted in a good reason: self-protection.
Zombie Festival and Town Life
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(00:03:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Scrivner hosts a large, free annual zombie festival in Eureka Springs, a small Victorian tourist town in the Ozarks.
  • Summary: Scrivner hosts a large zombie festival in Eureka Springs, Missouri, which draws an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 attendees annually. The town itself is a tourist destination known for its Victorian architecture and haunted hotel. Scrivner briefly ran a bed and breakfast there before moving to a different house in town.
Academic Background and Research Focus
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(00:07:20)
  • Key Takeaway: Scrivner’s research at ASU focuses on risk management, specifically how scary play can be used to better plan for future risks.
  • Summary: Scrivner holds an affiliation with ASU’s psychology department, working on an NSF grant concerning risk management through scary play. His academic background spans Anthropology, Forensic Biology (DNA analysis), and Comparative Human Development (Behavioral Biology). He prefers field studies over sterile lab environments because they require on-the-fly improvisation.
Gateway to Horror and Early Research
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(00:12:09)
  • Key Takeaway: The original Resident Evil video game served as Scrivner’s gateway into horror, leading him to study the paradox of enjoying violence.
  • Summary: Scrivner’s interest in horror began with the original Resident Evil game around age five or six, where finding a safe room to save provided regulation. His academic pursuit into this area began by studying the paradox of humans punishing violence while simultaneously being entertained by ritualized violence, like sports.
Haunted House Study in Denmark
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(00:16:42)
  • Key Takeaway: A study in Denmark found that fun in haunted attractions is maximized at a moderate fear level (around 7 or 7.5 out of 10), not the maximum scare level often advertised.
  • Summary: Scrivner conducted a study in Denmark measuring heart rates and facial expressions in a haunted house to understand how people have fun while afraid. The research revealed a sweet spot for enjoyment, suggesting that marketing the ‘scariest thing ever’ is not optimal for maximizing fun. This regulated fear exposure acts as emotional exposure therapy, practicing anxiety regulation.
Three Factors of Horror Enjoyment
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(00:20:46)
  • Key Takeaway: Horror enjoyment is driven by three distinct factors: adrenaline seeking, the accomplishment of ‘white-knuckling’ through fear, and ‘dark coping’ to interrupt difficult emotional patterns.
  • Summary: Scrivner identified three factors explaining why people like horror, moving beyond just the adrenaline rush. ‘White knucklers’ enjoy the accomplishment of challenging their fears, learning about their limits in the process. ‘Dark copers’ use scary experiences to interrupt anxiety or depression, finding relief in overcoming the simulated threat.
Morbid Curiosity Domains Defined
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(00:26:03)
  • Key Takeaway: Morbid curiosity is divided into four domains: minds of dangerous people, violence, bodily injuries, and paranormal danger.
  • Summary: The four domains of morbid curiosity help categorize interests like true crime (minds of dangerous people) and rubbernecking (bodily injuries). Paranormal danger taps into the historical human tendency to attribute misfortune to unseen, agentic beings to gain a sense of control over unexplainable events.
Human Modeling vs. Animal Learning
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(00:36:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Language and transmissible culture allow humans to simulate dangerous scenarios through stories, retaining the learning benefit while removing the high risk associated with animal predator inspection.
  • Summary: Unlike prey animals that must engage in risky predator inspection, humans use language to cheaply simulate dangerous situations, gaining knowledge without physical cost. This ability incentivizes the creation and sharing of amplified, fictionalized stories (super stimuli) to pass on vital survival information. This also provides a status boost to the storyteller.
Reactive vs. Proactive Aggression
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(00:43:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Human language enabled a shift from reactive aggression (signaled by primates) to proactive aggression, allowing for premeditated violence, which society punishes more harshly.
  • Summary: Humans are less reactively aggressive than chimps because language allowed groups to conspire against overly dominant individuals, effectively ‘domesticating’ reactive tendencies. However, this shift enabled proactive aggression—the ability to plot attacks when victims are unprepared. True crime interest stems from the need to learn the patterns of these hidden, proactive dangers.
Morbid Curiosity and Violence Myths
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(00:45:35)
  • Key Takeaway: Morbid curiosity does not correlate with violent tendencies, but over-consuming true crime can skew perceptions of real-world danger.
  • Summary: Research counters the myth that morbid curiosity leads to violence; however, consuming only true crime can mislead individuals about the actual likelihood of victimization. Avoiding these downsides is simple: balance true crime consumption with real-world activities like visiting the supermarket. Historical associations between horror fandom and negative life outcomes have not been supported by data.
Learning from Horror and True Crime
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(00:46:19)
  • Key Takeaway: Media consumption, like true crime, provides practical, non-experienced-based knowledge, such as safety tips like avoiding a second location during an attack.
  • Summary: Interest in horror and true crime naturally declines with age as the learning component diminishes, though community and social reasons for enjoyment may persist. Film critics’ negative judgments on horror films often stray into amateur psychology, which is not supported by scientific data. For instance, the intuition that liking violent media implies something is wrong with the viewer is not borne out by the evidence.
Violence, Sports, and Learning Parameters
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(00:48:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Interest in physical violence, exemplified by UFC viewership, often stems from a desire to learn parameters and safety mechanisms surrounding a primal fear of male-on-male assault.
  • Summary: The popularity of sports like the UFC can be linked to men processing the historical fear of bar fights by observing controlled, high-skill violence with established rules and intervention. Sports like American football inherently involve physical dominance, and complaints arise when protective measures soften the core violent premise. Watching controlled violence allows for learning about the limits of the human body without personal risk.
Bodily Injury as Danger Cue
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(00:50:05)
  • Key Takeaway: Extreme bodily injury, such as decapitation, indexes danger effectively because it implies a powerful, agentic, and potentially malicious perpetrator, prompting a stronger fear response than minor wounds.
  • Summary: Observing severe gore helps people learn the limits of the human body and what causes catastrophic failure, which is valuable information that cannot be practiced directly. Diseases like Ebola, despite low contagion rates, are frightening due to their extreme, monster-like presentation of bodily injury. The reaction to a missing head versus a small cut in the woods reflects an interpretation of the agentic force required to inflict that level of damage.
Contagion Movie Popularity During COVID
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(00:52:01)
  • Key Takeaway: Google Trends data shows a perfect correlation between the search spike for the movie Contagion and the search spike for ‘COVID’ in March 2020, indicating a collective need to simulate the unfolding pandemic.
  • Summary: Dax Shepard watched the 2011 film Contagion repeatedly during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven partly by a recent personal seizure that mirrored the film’s opening scene. The film’s popularity skyrocketed in March 2020, perfectly mirroring the search interest in coronavirus, suggesting viewers sought narrative context for the real-world crisis. The movie’s popularity surge, despite not being on major streaming platforms, highlights the public’s need to process unfolding threats through media.
Haunted Savannah and Ghost Hunting
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(00:54:44)
  • Key Takeaway: Even non-believers experience physiological fear responses in purportedly haunted locations because the expectation of the paranormal primes the amygdala to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threats.
  • Summary: Savannah, Georgia, is considered haunted due to its age, numerous historical tragedies including yellow fever outbreaks and slavery, and many old graveyards. Coltan Scrivner participated in a ghost hunt at the Sorrel Weed House, where he experienced unexplained physical sensations like something brushing his leg in the dark basement. A study showed that participants reacted identically to a sudden light flicker when told a ghost might be present versus when told it was faulty wiring, demonstrating the power of expectation over conscious belief.
Unexplained Paranormal Experiences
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(00:55:54)
  • Key Takeaway: A controlled experiment using simple, Dollar General cat toys in a supposedly haunted hotel room resulted in an unexplained light-up in response to a direct question about a specific spirit named Michael.
  • Summary: During a ghost hunt at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, investigators used simple, non-tamperable cat toys as indicators. After establishing a baseline for how much physical pressure was needed to activate the toys, the group asked if the spirit Michael was present, and the ‘yes’ ball lit up immediately. This single, unexplained event occurred despite rigorous control testing and no further activity that night, leaving the scientist unable to explain the result.
Logical vs. Emotional Truths
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(01:04:02)
  • Key Takeaway: Human decision-making is often governed by emotional truth, which can contradict logical truth, especially in unknowable areas like the afterlife.
  • Summary: Experiencing phenomena that defy logical explanation, such as the unexplained events in haunted houses, can force a shift in one’s worldview, even if the conscious mind resists. Emotional truth, which dictates immediate bodily reactions, often overrides logical understanding in uncertain situations. This conflict highlights that the emotional response is not irrelevant but frequently dictates behavior more than rational thought.
Morbid Curiosity Scale and Dreams
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(01:04:39)
  • Key Takeaway: The Threat Simulation Theory posits that dreaming evolved primarily as a mechanism to rehearse responses to dangers, providing a selection pressure for developing complex hallucination machinery.
  • Summary: Coltan Scrivner developed a 24-question scale available on his website to measure morbid curiosity across its four domains. The existence of complex dreaming machinery, which requires a physical ‘off switch’ to prevent acting out scenarios, suggests a strong evolutionary benefit, likely threat rehearsal. This theory suggests early dreams were nightmares, providing valuable, risk-free practice for survival scenarios.
Playful Fear and Skill Development
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(01:09:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Allowing children to engage with fear playfully through media or games is crucial for developing the necessary emotional regulation skills they will need as adults.
  • Summary: Parents should not shield children entirely from spooky content because playing with fear when young helps develop the tools to regulate anxiety later in life. Children’s brains are highly active, processing new skills, including how to find the ‘sweet spot’ of fear in a safe context. Haunted attractions are rarely attended alone, as sharing the fear experience allows couples to observe and learn about their partner’s responses under stress.
Horror Genre Market Share Rise
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(01:11:59)
  • Key Takeaway: The horror genre has doubled its market share over the last 20 years, peaking around the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting a renewed adult appetite for simulated threat in a safe environment.
  • Summary: Horror films have seen an upward trajectory in market share, reaching about 17% recently, while most other genres have declined. This rise is speculated to be linked to the pandemic, which brought back lapsed horror fans who realized they could handle the genre better as adults. This renewed interest creates a positive feedback loop, encouraging production companies to create more horror content.
Morbid Curiosity and Criminality
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(01:14:18)
  • Key Takeaway: There is no evidence that consuming morbid media causes violence; serial killers who enjoyed specific horror films are statistically insignificant compared to the millions of non-violent consumers of the same media.
  • Summary: While figures like Dahmer mentioned morbid curiosity when describing their actions, linking their media consumption directly to their crimes is an intuitive but inaccurate conclusion. School shooters, for example, were statistically less likely to play violent video games than the average teenage boy. Morbid curiosity alone does not lead to psychopathology; it only becomes relevant when combined with other traits like low empathy or high psychopathy.
University Billionaire Production Data
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(01:18:04)
  • Key Takeaway: The vast majority of the world’s approximately 3,000 billionaires are concentrated in alumni networks of a small fraction of the world’s estimated 25,000 to 50,000 universities.
  • Summary: Harvard and Stanford lead the world in producing billionaires by a significant margin, with Harvard producing 104 and Stanford 69. Columbia University surprisingly ranks fourth with 38, possibly due to its location in a wealthy area, while MIT ranks fifth with 28. The University of Georgia produced its first billionaire with the founder of Calendly, Tope Awotona, highlighting a significant achievement for the institution.
Racial Bias in Showing Wealth
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(01:31:10)
  • Key Takeaway: Societal biases cause different ethnic reactions to displays of wealth, such as ‘flossing and flexing.’
  • Summary: Reactions to individuals displaying wealth differ based on ethnicity, highlighting embedded societal struggles. The speaker notes that when Black individuals exhibit wealth, it is often ignored, whereas when white individuals do it, it draws criticism. This difference in perception is considered strange given that all individuals are fundamentally the same.
Pantone Color Tradition Rigidity
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(01:32:35)
  • Key Takeaway: The speaker’s annual tradition of using the Pantone Color of the Year as a phone background reveals a deep commitment to consistency that borders on addictive behavior.
  • Summary: The speaker is extremely committed to using the Pantone Color of the Year as their phone background, a tradition they started four or five years ago. The current color, ‘Cloud Dancer’ (white), is viewed as a disappointment because it might obscure phone icons, leading to a mental debate about commitment versus practicality. This adherence to routine is compared to addiction, where a positive initial feeling drives the need for repetition.
Tradition vs. Novelty Balance
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(01:36:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Having too many traditions limits the ‘real estate’ available for new discovery in life, suggesting a need for a magic balance.
  • Summary: An excess of traditions can restrict opportunities for novel experiences, similar to having 364 holidays leaving only one day for discovery. Consistency and commitment are valuable, but if everything becomes a tradition, nothing remains special. The speaker values novelty more than tradition, though they maintain specific, meaningful traditions like Christmas movie watching.
Pod Group Thanksgiving Debacle
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(01:41:03)
  • Key Takeaway: An unintentional miscommunication regarding a proposed trip to Nashville caused significant emotional distress for the speaker due to perceived abandonment and testing of traditions.
  • Summary: The speaker felt intense sadness and fear of abandonment when the group immediately agreed to a Nashville Thanksgiving trip after the speaker stated they could not attend due to existing traditions. This reaction was rooted in a core fear of being disposable, even though the speaker had explicitly given permission for others to go. The conflict was resolved by holding the primary Thanksgiving celebration early on Wednesday, allowing the group to proceed with the Nashville trip afterward.
Allison Roman Book Event & Laptop Fear
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(01:54:42)
  • Key Takeaway: The speaker exhibits extreme protectiveness over their laptop, viewing it as a repository of their work that cannot be touched by family or friends.
  • Summary: The speaker attended an event for Allison Roman’s book, ‘Something from Nothing,’ where they encountered someone who knew a Columbia acquaintance of Callie. Despite this, the speaker experienced significant anxiety about leaving their laptop unattended during the event, even bringing it to a Zanku location and holding it like a blanket for security. The speaker recommends Allison Roman’s book, noting Callie plans to buy it for Max for Christmas.
Animal Analogy and Rat Tea Kettle Fear
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(01:57:45)
  • Key Takeaway: The speaker’s aversion to being a male lion stems from FOMO regarding missing out on activities, contrasting with the lioness role they identify with.
  • Summary: Male lions sleep up to 21 hours daily while lionesses do the hunting, a racket the speaker finds appealing but rejects due to fear of missing out on events. Following this, the speaker expresses a persistent fear that a rat is inside the stem of their electric tea kettle, inspired by a previous Armchair Anonymous story about a rat in a water bottle. The speaker attempted to probe the kettle stem with a small brush, feeling resistance, which reinforced their belief that a rat is lodged inside.
Morbid Curiosity Test Results
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(02:06:37)
  • Key Takeaway: The speaker scored highest in the ‘Violence’ domain (5.67) and ‘Body Violation/Bodily Injury’ domain (4.83) on Coltan Scrivner’s morbid curiosity scale.
  • Summary: The speaker’s overall morbid curiosity score was 4.42 out of a maximum of 6, with their lowest score being in the paranormal domain (2.33). The speaker attributes their high violence score to a fear of physical altercations with men, which paradoxically drives their interest in the topic. The discussion concludes by noting that the instinct to share news of death or illness might be an evolutionary mechanism for women to pool health information, often accompanied by a ‘dopamine hit’ from the sharing itself.