One parent might think it’s all right to let a 7-year-old watch Jaws while another will rail against neighbors who meet their young trick-or-treaters with jump scares.
Who’s right about kids and horror? According to science, both.
Margee Kerr, Ph.D., a sociologist who teaches and conducts research at the University of Pittsburgh, is the author of Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear. Kerr has spent years investigating the upsides of fright and learned a good deal about its potential pitfalls in the process. She and other experts say kids can benefit from scary experiences—under the right conditions. Some of those conditions are the same for all children, producing a few general rules, while others vary based on individual needs and preferences.
SCARY BENEFits
Kerr says children can like being scared for a bunch of reasons: physiological, social and psychological. First, there’s a natural high that comes with the flood of endorphins and adrenaline triggered by flipping one’s nervous system into fight-or-flight mode. “It does pack a big
