Viewing touching film, as it turned out, promotes the release of endorphins that reduce pain.
According to the team of scientists from Oxford University, viewing tragic or melodramatic films promote the release of endorphins – hormones of joy and pleasure, reports BBC, referring to Open Science.
“The tendency to genre fiction – a very important feature of human society, inherent in all cultures, and it is widely studied by scholars. But why is fiction so fascinates the mass and what are its functions – these questions still have not been investigated by psychologists,” explains Robin Dunbar.
A team of scientists from Oxford, consisting of psychologists and writers, decided to test whether viewing drama promotes the release of endorphins, promoting pain relief naturally.
They showed one group participated in the experiment volunteers picture “Stuart: Past life” – a dramatic story about a homeless man with an unhappy childhood. The second group watched a documentary on neutral topics.
“Those who experienced a great emotional shock, showed higher pain threshold and more felt the connection with the friends in the group,” says Professor Dunbar.
“We are not saying that this chemical process is the only cause our cravings to the drama, there are other aspects of human psychology. But this is an important point that explains why we get such pleasure from the art of cinema,” the scientist said.
