The psychology of morbid curiosity: Development and initial validation of the morbid curiosity scale

The success of horror films, popularity true crime, and prevalence violence in the news implies that morbid curiosity is a common psychological trait. However, research on largely absent from literature. In this paper, I present psychometric tool for assessing curiosity, defined as motivation to seek out information about dangerous phenomena, use it investigate nature curiosity. studies 1 2 (ntotal = 1370), Morbid Curiosity Scale was developed its relationship personality assessed. Morbidly curious individuals were rebellious, socially curious, low animal reminder disgust. Study 3 (n 317) demonstrated trait stable over 4–6 weeks morbidly prefer movies where threat central theme. 4 137), participants presented with choice between non-morbid (image text). predicted half variance (r2 0.53) decisions further information. These four provide evidence normally occurring can be assessed using new 24-item Scale.