A study says your love of true crime podcasts may be about curiosity and not a negative personality

A study says your love of true crime may be about curiosity, not a negative personality Dinner is ready. You put on your headphones and return to a podcast about an unsolved murder. Someone overhears the introduction. “How can you listen to that while relaxing?”

You have wondered about it yourself. Does enjoying such dark material say something unpleasant about you?

Enjoying true crime does not, by itself, establish that you are a negative person. Research identifies different reasons for seeking frightening information. Wanting to understand danger is one possibility. Enjoying the search for answers is another.

What does research say about morbid curiosity?

Psychologist Coltan Scrivner examined morbid curiosity in a 2021 paper in Personality and Individual Differences. The term describes motivation to seek information about dangerous subjects. Despite its unsettling name, it does not simply mean taking pleasure in suffering.

Across four studies, Scrivner developed and tested the Morbid Curiosity Scale. People scoring higher showed greater interest in threatening information and films centred on danger. The findings supported treating morbid curiosity as a normally occurring psychological trait.

Imagine hearing that someone maintained a convincing public image while committing crimes. Your question might be, “How did nobody notice?”

Wanting an explanation differs from approving of the behaviour. The study helps explain interest in disturbing material, rather than offering a moral verdict on everyone who consumes it.

Could true crime appeal to a wish to feel prepared?

Psychologists Amanda Vicary and R. Chris Fraley explored true crime preferences in their 2010 paper, Captured by True Crime. They examined reader reviews and book choices. Further experiments varied features of crime stories to investigate their appeal to women.

Their research considered whether information relevant to avoiding danger helped explain that interest. The publisher’s account highlighted the appeal of survival information.

A listener might focus on how a victim recognised a threat or escaped an attacker. The attraction may involve understanding what happened, rather than seeking the most disturbing description.

However, feeling informed is different from becoming safer. The research did not establish that consuming crime stories reliably prevents victimisation. Nor should anyone assume that victims could have avoided harm by knowing more.

What is defensive vigilance?

A newer paper led by psychologist Corinna Perchtold-Stefan examined several explanations for true crime consumption.

Published online in 2025 in the British Journal of Psychology, it identified defensive vigilance among the relevant motives. The term refers to seeking information that might help someone anticipate danger.

Morbid curiosity and excitement also helped explain interest. For example, two people may finish the same episode for different reasons. One wants to understand threatening behaviour. Another enjoys the suspense.

The findings suggest that audiences do not share one simple motive. They do not prove that listening teaches effective self-defence.

Why is a murder mystery so difficult to leave unfinished?

Psychologist George Loewenstein’s information-gap theory of curiosity offers a useful explanation. His 1994 paper proposed that curiosity arises when we notice a gap between what we know and what we want to understand.

A mystery makes that gap obvious. A character disappears. Someone gives an account that does not fit the evidence. You now have a question you want answered.

Consider an Agatha Christie novel. A reader may keep turning pages to discover which suspect’s explanation falls apart. The appeal can lie in resolving uncertainty.

Applying the theory to mysteries is an interpretation. Loewenstein’s paper did not establish why every reader enjoys crime fiction. Still, it explains how unanswered questions can hold attention without requiring pleasure in violence.

Does enjoying crime content reveal your personality?

Research cannot support a blanket claim that personality is irrelevant. Perchtold-Stefan’s study found small associations between overall true crime consumption and some antagonistic traits.

Yet those associations cannot identify an individual listener’s character. The study also found different motives, and its survey design could not establish cause and effect.

Calling such people a negative person is also a vague label. Preferring a grim subject is not the same as behaving unkindly. True crime concerns real victims. Fictional murder mysteries concern invented events. Research on one format should not automatically be applied to the other.