Episode · Stuff You Should Know · 2026-06-24
Books mentioned on Short Stuff: Why does it feel good to be scared?
Fear is different than being scared, most notably because fear is generally a negative thing and being scared can cause an enjoyable thrill. We'll get into the difference in today's episode.
Josh Clark recommended Scream by Margee Kerr.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Scream
Scream is an engaging non-fiction exploration of why human beings derive psychological pleasure from fear, written by Margee Kerr and co-authored by her colleague Dr.
Recommended“There've been people that research this stuff. There's a book that we want to shout out called Scream Scream with an exclamation point uh from uh Margee Kerr and her colleague Dr. Greg Siegel, who is director of uh for the cognitive neuroscience program at University of Pittsburgh.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Crime and Punishment
“I was reading a book last yesterday. It was Crime and Punishment and I'm not just saying this just to show everybody I'm reading Crime and Punishment. Ooh. But somebody mentioned something being like sixes and sevens and I couldn't tell from the context what they were talking about. Still, I think it was kind of positive or something like”