Morbid curiosity is a natural, adaptive interest in dangerous things that helps humans learn about potential threats in their environment.

“So I define morbid curiosity as an interest in or curiosity about things that are dangerous, right? And that can come in non-fiction forms like true crime is obviously probably the most popular example of that. But I think even the news, you know, like honor news is is pretty threat laden.”

Dax Shepard maintains that his tendency to approach potentially dangerous or violent scenes stems from a genuine desire to assess the threat and determine how to help.

“I got to first know what we're up against. Oh, that's interesting. But yeah, I just want to run at everything.”