Is It Possible to Be Just Terrified Enough This COVID Halloween?
A Biologist of Animal Behavior Explains Why This Primordial Emotion Can Help Guide Us Through an Especially Spooky Season
It’s Halloween, the season when we go out and try to spook each other—at least in normal years. Indeed, fears of contracting and spreading the novel coronavirus have drastically impacted many of our Halloween plans. Should they? And more importantly, how do our fears impact our behavior to make us safe? I’m a biologist who studies animal behavior—including what scares creatures ranging from giant clams and other immobile marine invertebrates to a variety of birds and mammals, and why. Animals’ responses to frightening things—reactions that have helped species survive over …
