Snapshot · Last Podcast On The Left
A study by Dutch researcher Matthias Claassen found that horror fans dealt with the emotional and psychological shock of COVID significantly better than non-horror fans.
Where this was said
At 45:41 · chapter starts 44:10
Marcus asks Stephen whether COVID caught him off guard or whether he saw it coming given his long fascination with plague scenarios. Stephen admits the biggest result was that The Stand went 'through the roof' in sales — a ghoulishly useful silver lining. Joe then cites Dutch researcher Matthias Claassen, whose book Why Horror Seduces is described as the sharpest academic work in the genre, and a co-authored paper that found horror fans absorbed the emotional shock of the COVID years better than non-fans. Joe's explanation is intuitive: if you've read The Stand, you already have an action plan for Captain Trips. The conversation briefly touches on whether people behaved the same during the Black Plague as COVID — Marcus notes their 2021 research confirmed alarming similarities — before Stephen asks if they had Zoom in the 14th century.
When COVID hit, The Stand went through the roof in sales again. Stephen King acknowledged it was a silver lining in an otherwise grim moment — and Joe Hill noted that horror fans were already psychologically prepared.
When COVID hit in 2020, The Stand by Stephen King went 'through the roof' in sales again, as readers sought pandemic fiction that mirrored reality.
Dutch researcher Matthias Claassen co-authored a paper proving horror fans absorbed the psychological shock of COVID better than non-fans. If you've read The Stand, you already have your action plan.
Spencer Greenberg and Jeremy Stevenson analyzed almost 500 self-improvement techniques and found they all reduce to just 12 underlying psychological drivers.
Cold exposure has good short-term alertness benefits but the evidence base for long-term health benefits is much weaker than popularly believed.
In a randomized study of 20 habit-formation techniques run on hundreds of people, almost none of the techniques produced statistically meaningful results.
People given a tiny-habit fallback option (e.g. 10 squats instead of gym) were actually MORE successful at completing the full habit, not less.
The most effective habit-formation technique was 'habit reflection' — recalling a past successful habit, writing down what helped, then applying those lessons to a new habit.
A study found that simply scheduling enjoyable activities was as effective as standard cognitive behavioral therapy for depression, leading to its own therapy called behavioral activation.
The 'worry time' technique — deferring all worries to a designated time of day — helps people realize they have more control over worry than they thought and reveals it is less useful than it feels.
A study found that participants told to try to stay awake while in bed fell asleep faster than participants told to try to sleep — illustrating the paradox of direct effort.
Spencer Greenberg reduced his severe social anxiety dramatically in roughly 6 months through a structured exposure therapy hierarchy, culminating in asking strangers for hugs.
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