Abstract
People sometimes know that something is frightening but still try to see it. This study investigated how the psychological wish to see frightening things develops in childhood. We presented 92 children (ages 4, 5, and 6) with a frightening card and a non-frightening card (depicting either an animal or a ghost), and asked them which card they would want to see if they could only see one (a “frightening card selection task”). An appearance/reality distinction task and a mental/real distinction task were also conducted and examined for correlations. The results demonstrated that the behavior of preferring to see the frightening card rather than the non-frightening card increased with age, and such behavior was correlated with recognition of the mental/real distinction. In addition, boys tended to prefer the frightening card more than did the girls.
