Isabella Leandra Silva Santos, Carlos Eduardo Pimentel
{"title":"Superhero Films' Impacts on Prosocial Behavior: The Mediating Role of State-Empathy and Violence Justification.","authors":"Isabella Leandra Silva Santos, Carlos Eduardo Pimentel","doi":"10.1080/00223980.2024.2387039","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The present research aimed to observe superhero films' impacts on prosocial behavior, mediated by state-empathy (cognitive, affective and associative empathy) and moral justification. To achieve this goal, two online experiments were conducted, each with 200 Brazilian volunteers (Study 1: 70.5% women, mean age = 28.82, SD = 9.22. Study 2: 52.5% men, mean age = 27.63, SD = 9.25). We used a scene from Batman v Superman as the stimulus in the experimental groups. Prosocial behavior was measured using a food allocation task. Data from both studies showed that even when featuring violent elements, superhero films positively impacted prosocial behavior. These effects were indirect, mediated by associative empathy in Study 1 and moral justification in Study 2. Results highlight the complex relationship between prosocial violent media (aggressive content with prosocial goals) and behavior. We also emphasize the research's novelty, as studies that investigate media content that is both negative and positive are still scarce.</p>","PeriodicalId":2,"journal":{"name":"ACS Applied Bio Materials","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ACS Applied Bio Materials","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2024.2387039","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MATERIALS SCIENCE, BIOMATERIALS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The present research aimed to observe superhero films' impacts on prosocial behavior, mediated by state-empathy (cognitive, affective and associative empathy) and moral justification. To achieve this goal, two online experiments were conducted, each with 200 Brazilian volunteers (Study 1: 70.5% women, mean age = 28.82, SD = 9.22. Study 2: 52.5% men, mean age = 27.63, SD = 9.25). We used a scene from Batman v Superman as the stimulus in the experimental groups. Prosocial behavior was measured using a food allocation task. Data from both studies showed that even when featuring violent elements, superhero films positively impacted prosocial behavior. These effects were indirect, mediated by associative empathy in Study 1 and moral justification in Study 2. Results highlight the complex relationship between prosocial violent media (aggressive content with prosocial goals) and behavior. We also emphasize the research's novelty, as studies that investigate media content that is both negative and positive are still scarce.