Author: Grodal, Torben

Source: Projections, Volume 1, Number 1, Summer 2007 , pp. 91-107(17)

Abstract:

Based on film examples and evolutionary psychology, this article discusses why viewers are fascinated not only with funny and pleasure-evoking films, but also with sad and disgust-evoking ones. This article argues that although the basic emotional mechanisms are made to avoid negative experiences and approach pleasant ones, a series of adaptations modify such mechanisms. Goal-setting in narratives implies that a certain amount of negative experiences are gratifying challenges, and comic mechanisms make it possible to deal with negative social emotions such as shame. Innate adaptations make negative events fascinating because of the clear survival value, as when children are fascinated by stories about loss of parental attachment. Furthermore, it seems that the interest in tragic stories ending in death is an innate adaptation to reaffirm social attachment by the shared ritual of sadness, often linked to acceptance of group living and a tribal identity.

Keywords: attachment; cognitive film theory; coping and emotions; evolutionary psychology; hedonic valence; melodrama; sadness; tragedy

DOI: 10.3167/proj.2007.010107

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