Out of the Dark - Psychological Perspectives on People's Fascination with True Crime

The success of the true crime media genre narrating real-life crime stories reflects an avid human curiosity about tales of violence. Yet, despite popular speculations on the “who” and “why” of true crime consumption, psychological research on this phenomenon is lacking. In this article, we highlight perspectives on why true crime consumption may be of critical interest to various psychological research fields that go beyond simple media preferences. Additionally, we present a large-scale behavioral investigation which aims to provide first empirical insights into characteristics and motives of true crime consumers, as well as potential well-being correlates of true crime consumption. In n = 307 to 571 participants, we a) confirm a robust gender difference in true crime consumption in favour of women, and b) find associations of true crime consumption with demographics (income, education), safety perceptions (preparedness to avoid victimization), personality (morbid curiosity, agreeableness), aggression, well-being, and emotion regulation (acceptance, cognitive reappraisal). Additionally, c) we show that these true crime consumption links partly differ by gender. Finally, d) in multiple regression models, gender, income, morbid curiosity, victimization perceptions, narcissism, and emotion regulation via acceptance, reappraisal, and positive re-focusing emerged as unique predicators of true crime consumption and associated motives. Our investigation offers novel perspectives on negative human information seeking, which may fuel future research on (media) violence, threat coping, and creative emotion regulation.