Enjoyably Horrifying.

This article addresses the paradox of horror, which concerns how horror fans can experience fear—a typically negative emotion—as pleasurable when engaging with horror narratives. It critiques previous explanations that rely on the unpleasantness-pleasantness model of affective valence and proposes instead the aversion-attraction model of valence, which defines valence as an evaluation of stimuli in terms of attraction (conducive to interests) or aversion (contrary to interests), rather than as inherently pleasant or unpleasant. Applying this model resolves the paradox by allowing fear to maintain its negative valence (aversion) while still being experienced as pleasurable within the safe, controlled context of horror fiction. The article also reviews past philosophical and psychological approaches to the paradox, highlighting their limitations, and suggests that the aversion-attraction framework better accounts for the functional role of emotions and valence in both narrative and real-world contexts.