“Morbidly Curious is like a guided tour through a haunted mansion – a carefully crafted expedition with an expert guide to unveil the psychology behind the sinister and the spooky. Coltan Scrivner has a gift for extracting deep insights from our darker compulsions.”—Tonia Lombrozo, Director of the Concepts & Cognition Lab at Princeton University
“An entertaining examination of the underlying reasons behind our attraction to the macabre. . . . Scrivner does a fine job explaining and contextualizing our obsession with the grotesque and macabre through a psychological and evolutionary lens. Readers less inclined toward the dark and scary will hopefully have their horizons broadened. Readers with a high degree of morbid curiosity will find themselves vindicated (and just might consider keeping a few copies in reserve for scandalized loved ones).”—The New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating examination of a feature of human nature.”—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Blank Slate and The Better Angels of Our Nature.
"In this wonderfully unsettling exploration, Coltan Scrivner shows that morbid curiosity isn’t a pathology at all—it’s a form of preparation, one that deepens our empathy and builds our resilience. Morbidly Curious is sharp, humane, and a delight to read.”—Paul Bloom, Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University, and author of Psych: The Story of the Human Mind
Psychologist, Speaker, and Horror Entertainment Producer
Dr. Coltan Scrivner is an author and psychologist at Arizona State University. He is an internationally recognized expert on morbid curiosity and the psychology of horror and true crime.
He is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Nightmare in the Ozarks Film Festival, and the author of Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away.
A frequent speaker and media guest, he has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, TIME Magazine, National Geographic, Scientific American, Forbes, and dozens of other television programs, newspapers, magazines, radio shows, and podcasts.
Featured Writing
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The Perks of Morbid Curiosity
Horror does more than just scare us for fun. It trains us for life.
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![Newspaper headline featuring a controversial statement from a woman expressing infatuation with Jeffrey Dahmer, described as 'Milwaukee cannibal'. The text includes the woman's photo and her quote about Dahmer being the man of her dreams.]()
Why (Some) Women Want to Date Serial Killers
And why they love true crime
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![Close-up of a man with intense expression, next to text about first principles and quoting Marcus Aurelius.]()
The Horror Formula
A science-based formula for creating horror
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![A diagram illustrating the relationships between four traits: Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, and Antisocial, each linked to specific characteristics and correlation values. Interpersonal is associated with traits like glibness and pathological lying; Affective with lack of remorse and shallow affect; Lifestyle with impulsivity and irresponsibility; Antisocial with poor behavior controls and criminal versatility.]()
We Are Wrong About Psychopaths
A new “Switch Theory” of Psychopathy
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![Room with red lighting, brick floor, wooden chair, and curtain]()
The Ghost Experiment
Why ghosts give us chills even if we don't believe in them
Contact
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