Using yourself as a reference when animating is great but can be very limiting as we can only refer to ourselves and our experiences. Also, people react very differently when in a crowd like in the following examples so there is nothing better than going online to look for ideas.

A while back, Buzzfeed posted some amazing references of people being scared at when visiting “scariest world famous haunted house attraction in Niagara falls”.

Buzzfeed link

Here are just three examples. See how some people use their friends to shield themselves by grabbing them, have a gander, it is pretty hilarious.