The recent rise in popularity of the True Crime entertainment genre has demonstrated that some of us go giddy for gore and get a thrill out of scaring ourselves silly, which raises the question: why are so many of us drawn to the darker side? New research may have found an answer.

Content about serial killers is in demand worldwide, with films, TV series, books, and videos (including by yours truly) detailing their grisly crimes popping up left, right, and center.

It has previously been posited that this love of the macabre stems from morbid curiosity, or that it could allow people to experience intense emotions lacking in their lives and escape their own problems. It has also been suggested that such obsession may lead to increased violence, although research into the subject has not been extensive.

To find out what could be fueling our fascination – and what it says about us as people – a team of researchers from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Russia conducted a series of interviews among Russian youths. They spoke to a total of 26 young people aged 18 to 36 who hailed from 14 Russian cities, asking questions about the type of serial killer content they liked, how they came across it, and what they considered when choosing a film, video, or podcast.

Their findings imply that the desire to consume this violent content was not driven by a love of violence itself, nor was it associated with the want to commit violence in real life.

“The study revealed that young Russians consume media content about serial killers to simultaneously satisfy two types of needs: cognitive and emotional needs,” the team concludes in their paper. “Cognitive motives of consumption are rooted in the need for ontological security, whereas emotional motives are associated with satisfying consumerist needs for pleasure.”

In other words, people wanted to understand the motives of criminals, while also getting a kick of intense emotion that may be otherwise absent from their lives by learning about these gruesome real-life stories.

It is worth noting, however, that the study involved a very small sample size and may not be representative of the entire Russian youth population, so results should be interpreted with a pinch of salt.

“Our findings highlight that consuming media content about serial killers in itself does not signify a threat to society as social control is embedded in the consumers,” the researchers add. It’s a similar conclusion to recent research on violent video games: watching graphic content on screen doesn’t necessarily increase aggression in viewers.

“Interest in stories about serial killers, whether in the form of series or podcasts, is not a sublimation of cruelty,” study author Oksana Mikhailova said in a statement. “The respondents did not justify the actions of serial killers. On the contrary, they stated that such crimes should be prevented.”

Sounds like good news for the psychopath-obsessed among us, although much more research is needed to see if this really is the case, and whether it rings true in True Crime fans outside of Russia. 

If you are that way inclined, can we point you in the direction of IFLScience’s new series True Crime in Science? Episode six is out now and it might just scratch your serial killer itch.

The study is published in Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal.