Quick summary: True crime can attract viewers through morbid curiosity, particularly when disturbing events create a strong desire to understand what happened and why. Psychological research suggests that watching frightening material from a safe distance can help people explore threatening subjects without directly experiencing the danger, although this does not reveal an individual’s unconscious motives. Recognising these motivations can help mental health professionals discuss true crime consumption without treating an interest in disturbing stories as evidence of harmful thoughts or behaviour.
Netflix’s latest Monster series, The Lizzie Borden Story, became the most-watched series on Netflix in the UK during its first week of release. In the same week, it ranked fifth in Turkey and reached number one on the global English-language TV list with 12.1 million views.
The popularity of true crime is hardly new. Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story brought the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer to the screen and surpassed one billion viewing hours within its first 60 days, becoming one of the first few Netflix titles to reach this milestone. The series remained in the Global Top 10 for seven weeks and reached the Top 10 in 92 countries.
There is something curious about the way we respond to these stories. We might describe a series as disturbing, uncomfortable or difficult to watch, then carry on to the next episode. Knowing that someone was murdered does not always satisfy our curiosity. We want to know what happened, what led up to it, what the perpetrator was like and, perhaps most importantly, how anyone could have reached the point of committing such an act.
Psychology has a term for this interest: morbid curiosity. It refers to curiosity about disturbing or threatening subjects such as death, violence, danger and harm, and it helps explain why people can actively seek information about subjects that they would normally prefer to avoid.
The term can sound more sinister than the phenomenon itself. Morbid curiosity does not mean wanting people to suffer or taking pleasure in violence. It describes something more ordinary and, psychologically, more complicated. When confronted with something frightening, people do not always turn away. Sometimes they want to look more closely.
Why is it so difficult to look away?
Think about passing a road accident. You might tell yourself not to stare, yet part of your attention remains fixed on what has happened and whether everyone involved is safe.
Research by psychologist Suzanne Oosterwijk found that people sometimes deliberately chose to view negative images involving death, violence or harm. Images involving other people were particularly likely to provoke curiosity.
That finding matters because it suggests that curiosity about disturbing material is not simply an accidental consequence of exposure. When people have a choice, they may sometimes choose to find out more.
There is an obvious psychological tension here. If something frightens us, why would we deliberately move towards it?
Psychoanalytic thinking has long been interested in the possibility that people are drawn towards experiences that are not necessarily pleasant. Repetition compulsion, for example, was examined by Freud in relation to the ways people may repeatedly encounter experiences that are distressing. That does not mean that watching true crime can be explained as repetition compulsion, but it provides a useful example of why human motivation cannot always be reduced to the pursuit of pleasure.
Sometimes, approaching something frightening may be part of an attempt to process it.
Why do we want to know every detail?
Coltan Scrivner, who has researched morbid curiosity, describes it as a motivation to seek information about dangerous or threatening phenomena.
Uncertainty may be part of the appeal. A crime can initially appear chaotic and incomprehensible. As more information emerges, the event acquires a sequence. There is a beginning, a series of events, possible explanations and an outcome.
This connects with an important idea in Wilfred Ruprecht Bion’s work on thinking. He explored what happens when emotional experiences have not yet become something that can be mentally processed and thought about.
Seen from this perspective, the desire to know every detail of a crime may involve more than wanting additional entertainment. Making frightening experiences thinkable may be part of what keeps us engaged.
Turning a frightening real-world event into a narrative gives it boundaries. The viewer knows where the story begins, follows what happens and eventually reaches an ending. Reality rarely offers that same sense of order.
Why the criminal mind becomes part of the story
True crime also draws attention away from the crime itself and towards the person who committed it. Viewers often want to know what happened inside that person’s mind and whether there were warning signs that could have been recognised earlier.
Research suggests that curiosity about the minds and behaviours of dangerous people is an important dimension of morbid curiosity.
That may help explain the fascination with childhood histories, relationships, personality and behaviour that often surrounds true crime. The question is no longer simply “What happened?” It becomes “How could someone become capable of this?”
Psychodynamic theory offers another perspective because aggression, jealousy, anger and the desire for control are recognised as parts of human psychological life. In Melanie Klein’s work, love and aggression can exist within the same relationships rather than occupying completely separate psychological worlds.
Curiosity about a serial killer does not therefore imply that the viewer shares the killer’s wishes or impulses. A true crime programme can instead provide an opportunity to examine extreme human behaviour from a considerable distance.
We move between different perspectives
Another reason true crime can be psychologically absorbing is that the viewer is rarely confined to one perspective.
One moment, we may be thinking about the victim. Then we may consider what the family experienced or what investigators discovered. Later, the story may shift towards the offender’s childhood and behaviour, encouraging us to think about the circumstances surrounding the crime.
Identification describes one way people psychologically relate to another person’s experience or position. Stories give us opportunities to move between different perspectives without actually occupying any of those positions in real life.
A single crime story can therefore contain fear, grief, investigation, loss, survival and aggression. We can consider these experiences while remaining physically removed from the events themselves.
The screen gives us a safe distance
That distance matters. Few people would willingly place themselves in the same room as a serial killer, yet millions of people will sit at home and watch a dramatisation of one.
The screen creates a boundary between the viewer and the threat. We can approach the subject closely while retaining the ability to pause, stop watching or switch to something else.
Research into frightening fiction suggests that frightening fiction can allow people to mentally explore dangerous situations within a safe environment.
That distinction between psychological proximity and physical safety may help explain part of true crime’s appeal. The viewer can investigate something frightening without being directly exposed to the real-world consequences.
Perhaps uncertainty is part of what keeps us watching
The popularity of Monster cannot be attributed to a single psychological mechanism. Morbid curiosity may be relevant, but storytelling, acting, publicity, cultural interest and the particular details of each case can also influence whether people watch.
Nor does watching true crime provide a reliable window into someone’s unconscious motivations. Morbid curiosity tells us something more general about human curiosity: disturbing information can sometimes become more compelling precisely because it concerns danger, death or harm.
We do not always respond to frightening subjects by turning away. Sometimes we want to know what happened, then what happened before that, and then what might explain it. A story gives those questions a structure that reality often cannot.
That may be part of the reason the next episode is so tempting when the previous one ends.
Selen Ercelik is a clinical psychologist and University of Derby postgraduate student focusing on psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches.
