Scientist have discovered that watching movies especially tear jerking movies like tragic films releases natural painkillers and help us bond with people around us.
Research done by oxford university team discovered that tragic movies and other dramatic works trigger the release of a chemical known as endorphins, which act as natural painkiller and help us in social bonding.
The team leader of the research Prof. Dubar Robin said that humanity has been fascinated by fictional stories for centuries but scientists have not investigated its evolutionary basis.
"Fiction is widely studied by humanities academics as it is an important feature of human society, common to all cultures," said Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University.
"Yet the reasons why fiction can be so engrossing and the functions for this have not been widely studied by psychologists or behavioural biologists.
"There are good social reasons: folklore enables us to pass on wisdom or ingrain community values, bringing us together. While that is important, it does not fully explain why we are willing to return again and again to be entertained."
WHO IS PRO. ROBIN DUBAR ?
Prof. Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar (born 28 June 1947) is a British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist and a specialist in primate behaviour.He is currently head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and a visiting professor at Aalto University.
He is best known for formulating Dunbar's number, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships.