We've always been scaring ourselves, all the way back to the dawn of man, sitting around a campfire telling scary stories. But the growth in the consumer industry for scary material is a reflection of our desire to wrap our heads around fear in this modern age.

Sociologist Margee Kerr explores the science behind fear itself, from the complex interplay between body and mind to the challenges of examining and measuring fear in and out of the lab, and explains what drives bored humans to enter haunted houses, or jump off cliffs, in search of a return to a basic, primal state of terror.

Margee's new book is Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear from PublicAffairs Books.