The Psychological Functions of the Stories based on the Genre of Horror in Novels for Adolescents

Stories based on the genre of horror have always been the best seller ones in the field of children’s and adolescents’’ literature worldwide as well as Iran. Adolescent readers have extraordinarily been keen on them. The critics and theorists have been divided into two groups toward this issue. Some critics believe that stories based on the genre of horrors bring about harmful effects on child and adolescent readers. On the contrary, some other critics think that these works are the best sellers among adolescents because of the characteristics of adolescence. The present research scrutinizes the relation between the genre of horror, the reasons of horror stories among adolescents and the functions of the stories of this literal type among adolescent readers. The findings of this study indicate that there is a meaningful relationship between the horror literal works and the needs of adolescence. Moreover, these types of stories convey remarkable psychological functions among adolescent readers. This research has been done based on descriptive-analytical approach.