Fear and Halloween are probably going to be forever intertwined. After all, a holiday that celebrates the ghastlier aspects of death and beyond has to conjure up images of fear in some minds. However, fear and anxiety associated with the holiday aside, observing people’s behavior around Halloween can often show an interesting dichotomy to how people handle fear. The same concept also applies whenever most people are presented with an option to voluntarily view something they know is designed to scare them, such as a horror movie. Proper observation can often make it apparent that far is not quite as simple to understand as most folks would like to assume.
Fear is a negative emotional response. This has been what each and every one of us has been told since we were children. Recognizing fear and anxiety as negative factors is also deeply ingrained into the basic human psyche, with people instinctively associated fear with a variety of undesirable personality traits. The avoidance of fear, or at least controlling one’s self to the point that one’s fear and anxiety is not readily apparent to casual observers, can sometimes have side effects when a...