Morbid curiosity: what it is, characteristics and its psychological elements.

These are the components of morbid curiosity and its ways of expressing itself in our actions.

We are walking down the street and we find a corpse, what do we do? Apart from the obvious, which is to get scared when we see it and call the police, we may do one of the following two things: cover our eyes, trying not to see it anymore, or approach it and see it in detail.

No, being curious about a corpse is not exactly normal, but it is not a symptom of psychopathy or anything like that. The human being is curious by nature and there are many people who are very interested in things that are grotesque, murky and macabre.

Morbid curiosity is that feeling of not wanting to look at something that we find horrifying but, even so, not being able to avoid looking at it.. It is a strange, ironic sensation that manifests itself in different degrees depending on the person. Today we are going to see what are the key aspects behind this peculiar sensation.

What is morbid curiosity?

Have you heard of Ricardo Lopez? Of the many people who answer to this name, the most infamous is undoubtedly the Uruguayan-American who in 1996 wanted to go down in history by trying to end the life of his greatest idol, the Icelandic singer Björk.

Lopez is not only known for having attempted to commit such a homicide, but also for how he recorded his descent into madness through 18 hours of footage recorded with his camera, a gift he gave himself on his 21st birthday.

These recordings are video diaries in which he exposes his thoughts, his love-hate for Björk and, also, his complexes about his overweight due to his Klinefelter's syndrome. In most of the recordings Ricardo Lopez appears half-naked, with an evident level of slovenliness in an apartment that was more and more full of dirt with each recording. It is also in these video diaries where he records how he made the sulfuric acid bomb that he would send to his idol. His last recording, titled "The Last Day - Ricardo Lopez" by himself, ends with him opening his mouth and shooting himself.

These macabre recordings, evidence of the mental problems of a fanatic who tried to change the Icelandic singer's life by taking her away from her, are difficult to watch.. Not because they are not available on the Internet, in fact, all of Lopez's videos are on Youtube. The thing about them being difficult to watch is that it takes quite a stomach to see how Ricardo Lopez shows us how his life and mind become increasingly murky, grotesque and disturbing.

But the truth is that the Youtube channel is full of videos about the case, and even has a specialized channel where everything is exposed, including the lifeless body of the young man of 21. There is a video-documentary of almost 2 hours with more than 200,000 views, made with the most important videos of Lopez.

And let's not talk about the huge amount of youtubers specialized in serial killers and notorious murderers who talk about the case. If there are so many videos, it is because there is demand for the subject. People are interested in a subject that arouses a lot of morbid curiosity.

We have all felt this emotion on more than one occasion. Morbid curiosity is that feeling of not wanting to watch, but still not being able to stop watching.. We are seeing something that seems threatening and disgusting, that our nature tells us that it is wrong to look so much into it, that it is even dangerous, but still we go on.

We feel a macabre attraction towards something horrifying, the same attraction felt by those interested in the case of Ricardo Lopez and Björk.

The psychological elements of morbid curiosity.

This emotion has been known for a long time. Plato himself recorded it 2000 years ago when he told the story of a man named Leontius. One day, Leontius was walking near the walls of his city when he caught a glimpse of a pile of corpses with their executioner beside them.

Leontius felt a fervent desire to look at these lifeless bodies, but at the same time he had a genuine feeling that it was wrong to look at them.. But his desire conquered his aversion, and Leontius could not help approaching the corpses, exclaiming:

"There! You wretches! Behold your fullness before the beautiful spectacle!"

Even from a modern view Leontius' actions do not surprise us. After all, if the same thing happened to us, it is quite likely that we would not be able to avoid looking at them, even a little bit.

Of course, some people would probably not be able to look at them at all, while others would not take their eyes off them because, like all human traits, morbid curiosity also has individual differences.

What is it that makes some people more prone to look at creepy things than others? This was the question posed by researcher Coltan Scrivner, who has conducted several investigations to determine what are the key aspects behind why one person manifests a higher degree of morbid curiosity than others. Based on his research, Scrivner discusses up to three main key aspects:

1. Rebellious nonconformity.

According to Scrivner's research, socially rebellious people score high on something called rebellious nonconformity, ie, the tendency not to obey social norms. Social rebels care little for traditional lifestyles and prefer a certain unpredictability in their lives.

Many people, when they are told that something is forbidden or wrongly done, feel a special attraction to do it, something that would be the case of those who present high rebellious nonconformism. Most things that arouse morbid curiosity are often discouraged and penalized by cultural norms.

In Western settings, such as Europe and North America, it is considered a violation of social norms to show interest or curiosity about topics such as serial killers, violence, rape, or paranormal activities, even though we can find them in the media. Showing interest in all of these in a Western country is a strong predictor of morbid curiosity.

Of course, this depends on each cultural context, since in a culture where these issues are not in a culture where these issues are not such a taboo subject, social rebels will be less likely to show morbid curiosity towards these same issues..

2. Disgust that reminds us of our animal origins

Another of the key aspects that Scrivner mentions when talking about morbid curiosity is what he calls "animal reminder disgust", translatable to something like the disgust that reminds us of our animal origins. This is a dimension of generic disgust that is activated by the sight of corpses and things that remind us of death..

It is believed that this type of disgust appears to protect us from that which could be dangerous to our health, such as a contaminated bodily fluid or that which has killed the corpse we are looking at.

In his research, Scrivner found that people with high morbid curiosity tend to feel less disgust towards those things that remind us of our animal origins. That is, morbidly curious people are less likely to express fear in various aspects of life that are related to death and are less upset in situations where bodily integrity may be compromised.

3. Overt social curiosity

Building on the work of Todd Kashdan, in whose research he shows that generic curiosity can be categorized into five dimensions, this researcher and his colleagues have identified social curiosity as a key aspect behind curiosity.

Social curiosity can be divided into two types: overt and covert.. While overt social curiosity refers to an interest in the behavior of others, covert social curiosity is associated with an interest in gossip and gossip.

Coltan Scrivner relates this to one of the dimensions he has identified in his work on morbid curiosity: that of interest in the minds of dangerous people. The main aspect of this dimension would be to show curiosity toward the motives and behaviors of dangerous people that has driven them to commit a vile and bloody act. According to him, people who score high on overt social curiosity are more likely to manifest morbid curiosity.

• Related article, "What is Social Psychology?"

The morbid curiosity test

By way of conclusion, with his work Scrivner argues that, although the three key aspects that we have explained do not explain all the variance in human morbid curiosity, they do have a notable influence on its appearance and the degree to which it manifests itself. to which it manifests itself.

Based on their work and in summary, people who do not pay too much attention to social norms, who are not afraid of death, who do not get upset when they see a damaged or dead body and who, in addition, are curious about the criminal behavior of certain people, have all the chances to have a high morbid curiosity.

Maybe you are also a morbidly curious person... Who knows? You probably already have your suspicions about whether you are or not based on how curious you were when you saw a dead animal or if you like documentaries about shady things but, still, if you want to check, Coltan Scrivner himself has devised a test to assess morbid curiosity available on his website.