Fear, disgust, and pursuit of different types of horror: Introducing the Horror Themes Questionnaire

Abstract

Despite the increasing popularity of the horror genre, there are no psychometrically sound instruments that would allow for the study of horror, taking into account the complexity of the genre and the different individual responses it evokes in its recipients. In this study, we present the Horror Themes Questionnaire (HTQ), which assesses fear, disgust, and pursuit of different types of horror. The measure consists of scales related to five specific themes characteristic of the horror genre: monsters, paranormal phenomena, killers and psychopaths, mental disorders, and gore and violence. The HTQ items were evaluated by competent judges to confirm their content validity and then tested on a group of 627 adults. Factorial analyses confirmed that the questionnaire can be used to obtain overall scores regarding fear, disgust, and pursuit of horror, as well as scores on each of the five specific scales. We also confirmed configural and metric equivalence between the scores for the fear, disgust, and pursuit parts of the questionnaire. The reliability of HTQ was satisfactory in terms of both internal consistency and stability over time. The convergent and divergent validity of the measure was confirmed by showing that HTQ scores correlate with scores on questionnaires that assess personality traits, empathy, assumptions about the benevolence and meaningfulness of the world, worthiness of self, need for cognitive closure, trait anxiety, and general disgust sensitivity. HTQ is the first psychometrically sound measure that allows for comprehensive examination of the horror genre in psychological research.