A missing person case appears on a podcast. A decades-old murder becomes the subject of a documentary. A carefully reconstructed crime fills an evening that could have been spent watching almost anything else. For millions of people, true crime has become a familiar form of entertainment. But what keeps people returning to stories about murder, deception, kidnapping and other real-world crimes?
Psychology suggests the answer may be more complicated than simply enjoying violence. A 2025 study published in the British Journal of Psychology, titled “Out of the dark – Psychological perspectives on people’s fascination with true crime,” examined true-crime consumption and the psychological characteristics associated with it.
Psychologists Corinna Perchtold-Stefan and colleagues found several possible motivations, including morbid curiosity, defensive vigilance and excitement. Importantly, when the researchers distinguished curiosity about violence from curiosity about dangerous people, curiosity about violence itself did not significantly predict interest in true crime. Curiosity about the minds of dangerous people, however, did.
Curiosity
For some viewers, the central attraction may be the attempt to understand what happens inside a dangerous person’s mind.
A person watching a crime documentary may not be particularly interested in graphic details. They may instead wonder what motivated the offender, whether warning signs were missed, how investigators identified a suspect or how someone who appeared ordinary could commit a serious crime.
This can relate to morbid curiosity, a psychological tendency to seek information about disturbing or threatening subjects.
Psychologist Coltan Scrivner examined this concept in his 2021 study, “The Psychology of Morbid Curiosity: Development and Initial Validation of the Morbid Curiosity Scale.” Across four studies involving more than 1,800 participants, Scrivner developed a measure of morbid curiosity and found evidence that it can represent a relatively stable individual difference.
People with stronger morbid curiosity showed particular interest in information involving threats. That does not mean they wanted to experience danger themselves. Curiosity can make threatening information interesting because it provides an opportunity to understand something potentially important about the world.
Vigilance
True crime may also appeal to people who want to understand how danger develops.
In the 2025 research by Perchtold-Stefan and colleagues, defensive vigilance emerged as one motivation for consuming true crime. Some participants described using crime stories to learn about potentially dangerous situations.
This may involve paying attention to warning signs, considering how circumstances can escalate or thinking about ways people might protect themselves.
The researchers found this motivation was particularly pronounced among women, who also reported greater overall true-crime consumption in the study.
This does not mean that women watch true crime simply because they are afraid. Rather, information about real cases may provide material for thinking about personal safety and possible threats.
Fear
Fear of crime can appear to conflict with an interest in crime stories. If crime is frightening, why deliberately watch or listen to stories about it?
The study found that fear of crime was independently associated with greater true-crime consumption, particularly motivations involving defensive vigilance and emotion regulation.
One possible explanation is that information can make an uncertain threat feel more structured. Instead of an undefined concern that something bad could happen, a documentary presents a sequence of events, people and circumstances.
That structure may make a frightening subject easier for some people to process. The viewer can examine the danger from a position of relative safety and distance.
This does not mean true crime functions as therapy or reduces fear for everyone. People can respond to the same material in very different ways.
Excitement
Not every true-crime viewer is looking for safety information.
Perchtold-Stefan and colleagues also identified excitement as an independent motivation. Crime stories combine mystery, uncertainty and real-world events, which can make them compelling entertainment.
A viewer may want to know what happened, who was responsible and how the case was eventually resolved. The investigative process itself can create suspense without requiring the viewer to enjoy violence.
This helps explain why people with very different psychological characteristics can enjoy the same genre.
Personality
The research also found associations between true-crime consumption and certain antagonistic personality characteristics. This adds another layer to the picture, suggesting that there is no single psychological profile shared by everyone who enjoys true crime.
It would therefore be misleading to label true-crime fans as fearful, aggressive, unusually curious or fascinated by violence based solely on their viewing habits.
Personality, personal experience, interests, social environment and the particular type of true crime someone consumes can all influence their reasons for choosing the genre.
Context
The findings also need to be interpreted carefully. A study identifying associations between psychological characteristics and true-crime consumption cannot establish that one factor causes someone to watch more crime content.
The genre itself is broad. A person interested in courtroom investigations may have very different motivations from someone who follows stories about serial offenders or missing-person cases.
What the research does challenge is a simple assumption that an interest in true crime necessarily reflects an interest in violence. For some people, the attraction may instead involve understanding dangerous individuals, identifying potential threats, making sense of uncertainty or simply experiencing the suspense of a real-world mystery.
In the end, true crime can serve different psychological purposes for different people. Some viewers may be curious about human behaviour, others may be interested in personal safety, and some may simply enjoy the investigative narrative. The growing popularity of the genre is therefore unlikely to have one explanation. Its appeal may lie partly in our desire to understand frightening and unusual events from a safe distance, turning uncertainty into something we can examine, question and, to some extent, understand.
FAQs
Why do people enjoy true crime?
Motives can include curiosity, vigilance, excitement and entertainment.
Does true crime mean someone likes violence?
No. Interest can focus on dangerous people, threats or investigations.
What is morbid curiosity?
It is an interest in information about disturbing or threatening topics.
Can fear increase true-crime interest?
Research found fear of crime was linked with greater consumption.
Why do women often watch more true crime?
Research links this partly with stronger defensive vigilance motives.
