A new study published in the journal Emotion provides evidence that voluntarily participating in frightening activities with others, such as visiting a haunted house, tends to make people feel more connected to one another. The findings suggest that experiencing fear in a safe setting fosters a subjective sense of bonding, though the true strengthening of relationships may depend heavily on talking about the experience afterward.

Humans are highly social creatures, and forming bonds with others is strongly linked to overall health and psychological well-being. Scientists have gathered substantial evidence showing that sharing positive emotions, like laughing at a comedy show or cheering at a concert, amplifies interpersonal closeness. A separate line of research suggests that negative emotions, specifically fear, also push people to seek out the company of others. When people face a common threat, they often prefer to face it together rather than alone.

Beyond simply seeking company, shared emotional arousal can create a sense of unity. Previous studies indicate that fear can spread from person to person, synchronizing heart rates and reinforcing group cohesion. Most previous experiments exploring the link between fear and social bonding relied on artificial laboratory settings or situations involving genuine threats. The researchers wanted to investigate how fear affects relationships in a recreational context, where the threat is entirely simulated.

Jane Wiley conducted this research as an undergraduate student at the University of Florida and is an incoming social psychology doctoral student at the University of Virginia. She explained that the rationale for the project stemmed from personal experiences in similar recreational environments.

“This topic is a personal one for myself and my PI, Dr. Ken Swan,” Wiley said. “He and I are huge horror and haunted house fans. We have shared plenty of stories (and have heard many others from haunted house guests) of how going through a haunted house together can be a strong bonding experience.”

Wiley noted that anecdotal success stories served as inspiration for the project. “A first date he had at Halloween Horror Nights led to a happy marriage, and I got very close with a best friend — Garrett Johnson, another author of the paper — after we went through a haunted house together,” she said. “This interpersonal focus had not been researched in recreational fear literature when we began, so that was what drew us to studying what we did.”

Millions of people seek out recreational fear every year by riding roller coasters, watching horror movies, or visiting haunted attractions. The scientists designed this project to test whether the fear experienced in these playful, safe environments translates into stronger social ties. They wanted to know if the temporary thrill of a scare can generate a lasting sense of interpersonal warmth among friends, family members, and acquaintances.

To explore these ideas, the researchers conducted a series of five studies over three Halloween seasons at a commercial haunted attraction in Florida. In the first study, the team surveyed 986 attraction attendees immediately after they finished a sensory deprivation haunted house. The participants answered questions on a 7-point scale regarding how much fear they felt, how much they enjoyed the attraction, and whether the experience brought them closer to the person in their group they already felt closest to. The researchers also asked if participants communicated or held hands with their companion during the event.

The scientists found that higher levels of reported fear strongly predicted a stronger feeling of having bonded with a companion. Engaging in physical contact, such as holding hands, and communicating during the event also predicted higher ratings of perceived closeness. Enjoying the experience contributed to the bonding effect as well. This provided initial evidence that shared fear in a fun setting promotes social connection.

To verify these findings and look for measurable changes, the researchers conducted a second study with 500 participants during the next Halloween season. This time, guests completed surveys both immediately before and right after navigating the attraction. This method allowed the scientists to measure precise shifts in interpersonal closeness. As in the first study, participants were asked to focus on the person in their group they felt closest to.

Once again, the amount of fear a person felt predicted how much they believed the experience brought them closer to their companion. Yet, when the scientists looked at the direct difference between the before and after closeness ratings, they found no measurable change. The researchers suspected a ceiling effect, meaning that because these participants already rated their relationship so highly before entering the attraction, there was very little mathematical room for their closeness score to increase on a 7-point scale.

For the third study, the researchers adjusted their focus to see if the bonding effect applied to less intimate relationships. They surveyed 554 participants, asking them to focus on the group member they felt the least close to, or someone they argued with most often. Participants were asked if the attraction brought them closer to this specific person, how much fear they felt, and if they made any physical contact.

The scientists found that fear and physical contact remained strong predictors of feeling brought together, even for the least close companions. Approximately 45 percent of participants agreed that the experience made them feel closer to their least close group member. When asked about their party as a whole, an even higher percentage, about 64 percent, felt the experience brought their entire group closer. This suggests that the bonding effect of recreational fear generalizes across different relationship types and might even be amplified when experienced as a collective unit.

In the fourth study, the researchers again attempted to capture a measurable shift in closeness from before to after the haunted house. They maintained their focus on least close companions to avoid the ceiling effect seen in earlier attempts. The researchers collected complete survey data from 263 attendees who rated their closeness to their least close groupmate before entering and then again after exiting. The team also asked the participants to rate their fear, enjoyment, and physical contact during the immersive 30-minute experience.

The predictive model held up for a fourth time, with fear, physical contact, and enjoyment all predicting perceptions of enhanced closeness. Additionally, the researchers finally detected a statistically significant increase in closeness ratings from before the experience to afterward. The actual shift was very small, rising by an average of just 0.21 points on a 7-point scale. This modest change raised questions about why people overwhelmingly reported feeling closer, even though their numerical closeness ratings barely moved.

“Our most surprising finding was when we kept seeing no pre-to-post change in closeness, prior to figuring out that post-haunt reflection is essential for bonding to occur,” Wiley noted. “We carried out two different studies with before and after surveys, one investigating closest dyads and the other investigating least-close dyads, and neither of them showed significant change.”

She added that this lack of initial change was difficult to interpret at first. “This ultimately ended up being a good obstacle to encounter since it led us to transition to qualitative data collection (which helped us deduce the post-experience reflection bit), but it was hard to make sense of at the time,” Wiley said. “So I would say the most surprising finding is that going through a haunted house together alone, without the time to talk and laugh afterwards, does not seem to be sufficient for significant bonding.”

To understand this paradox, the researchers conducted a fifth and final study consisting of face-to-face qualitative interviews. Qualitative research involves gathering non-numerical data, such as conversational responses, to understand underlying concepts, opinions, and motivations. The researchers interviewed 20 guests right after they completed the haunted house and the quantitative survey. They asked the participants what feeling closer meant to them and why their numerical scores might not have changed despite reporting a stronger bond.

During the interviews, the attendees emphasized that the bonding effect of shared fear is not always immediate. Instead, participants explained that the true connection happens during post-experience processing, which involves talking, laughing, and swapping stories about the scares on the car ride home. Sharing a novel, physically intense experience created a space for vulnerability. However, the scientists learned that immediate surveys often fail to capture relational shifts because participants have not yet had the time to mentally unpack the event and reflect on their shared survival.

“Haunted houses seem to have the ability to make two people feel closer together, whether these two people were previously very close or not,” Wiley explained. “In other words, going through a haunted attraction with either your best friend or your annoying coworker will likely prove to be beneficial to the relationship. However, this link is quite contingent on what you and that other person do after the experience.”

The act of unwinding after the scare appears to be a necessary ingredient for strengthening relationships. “Post-haunt reflection is important to the process of bonding: the haunted house on its own may not do much to strengthen the relationship, but if you talk, reminisce, and laugh about the experience afterwards, you’ll probably feel more bonded with that person,” Wiley said.

While this research provides extensive insights into recreational fear, it is subject to a few limitations. “As there is with any study, ours certainly had limitations,” Wiley noted. “We used convenience samples of people who were already at the haunted house, so not only were race, ability, and income unevenly distributed, but our conclusions can only really be generalized to people who would normally show up at a haunted house with their friends or family (this is a double-edged sword though — we’re interested in recreational fear, so we are particularly interested in people who seek out these experiences on their own time anyway).”

Environmental factors during the surveys might have also influenced the data. “We were surveying people inside the bar of the haunted house, which was a pretty chaotic and high-traffic space: the music was loud, people were drinking, and participants filled out surveys side-by-side with other participants, who in some cases were the people they came with,” Wiley explained. “So it was definitely not a distraction-free environment we were collecting data in, which may have impacted responses. We also only examined the impact of haunted houses in particular, so we cannot make these same conclusions yet about other forms of recreational fear, like horror movies or extreme sports.”

One potential misinterpretation is the idea that simply scaring people together will automatically fix a broken relationship. A notable minority of participants did not feel closer to their companions, suggesting that fear could potentially strain a relationship if a person feels unsupported or mocked during a moment of vulnerability. The researchers propose that recreational fear might act as an interpersonal stress test. Reacting to a scared partner with physical comfort and humor strengthens bonds, while reacting poorly might diminish them.

Expanding the research could yield useful insights into how shared emotional intensity shapes human connection over time. “We would definitely like to expand on this study, particularly adding an experimental manipulation where some participants have time for post-experience reflection while others don’t, in order to investigate the cause-and-effect relationship,” Wiley said. “We’d also like to see if this bonding pattern exists for other forms of recreational fear.”

The study, “Haunted Attraction: The Effects of Recreational Fear on Interpersonal Bonding,” was authored by Jane K. Wiley, Alexa A. Rivers, Otho Garrett Johnson, Cristina S. Negraru, Jake T. Watson, Tara M. Perreault, Rebecca Martin, Sara C. Slayton, Steffano I. Segovia-Palacios, Benjamin R. Stanisky, Kate E. Doherty, and Lawton K. Swan.