OPTIMISM-PESSIMISM AND EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO UNPLEASANT MOVIE SCENES

Abstract

The aim of this research was to examine if there are some differences in a way optimists and pessimists react to unpleasant movie stimuli. The sample was convenient and it consisted of 42 (F=90%) students of psychology, from the Faculty of philosophy in Nish. Age range in the sample was from 18 to 20 (M=19, SD=.541). Instruments used in this research were: Life orientation test (LOT-R: Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994) and Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS: Mayer, & Gaschke, 2013) in order to operationalize the mood of the respondents. The stimulus was a scene from the movie Sophie’s Choice, which aimed at inducing a negative affect. From the results we can conclude that the mood of the optimists, after watching movie stimuli, is corrputed, while the mood of the pesimists isn't.So, in the further studies which examine emotion induction through movies, we suggest the  inclusion of optimism-pesimism as a control variable.Also, for further studies we suggest the involvement of actors and testing how they react to film stimuli.