Humans can control and enjoy aversive emotions like fear or pain by experiencing them under their own control.

“What it is is a controlled aversive emotion under your own power. And so, for example, if you go to a haunted house on Halloween >> and get scared >> and get scared, you're controlling the fear. If you're on a really radical amusement park ride, it's the same sort of thing. And what you're doing is you're subjecting yourself to a little bit of the stress hormones and the experience of the aversive emotion, but since it's under your own control, you actually use it in a way that you enjoy.”