Marianne C Reddan, Sydney B Garcia, Golijeh Golarai, Jennifer L Eberhardt, Jamil Zaki
{"title":"Film intervention increases empathic understanding of formerly incarcerated people and support for criminal justice reform.","authors":"Marianne C Reddan, Sydney B Garcia, Golijeh Golarai, Jennifer L Eberhardt, Jamil Zaki","doi":"10.1073/pnas.2322819121","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Nuanced portrayals of stigmatized groups in media have been shown to reduce prejudice. In an online experiment (N = 749), we tested whether a feature film depicting incarcerated peoples' experiences in the criminal justice system can increase a) empathic accuracy and compassion toward people who have been incarcerated and b) support for criminal justice reform. We measured baseline empathic accuracy via a well-validated task, where participants infer the emotions of people sharing stories about difficult life events. All storytellers were formerly incarcerated and students. However, in half the videos we labeled them as \"formerly incarcerated\" and in the remaining half as \"college student.\" We then surveyed people's baseline attitudes toward criminal justice reform. Next, we assigned participants to watch one of three films. The intervention film chronicled the true stories of Black men on death row. Two docudramas of similar length served as control films. Finally, participants completed the empathic accuracy task and survey again and were given the opportunity to sign a petition. Compared to those who watched a control film, participants who watched the intervention film more accurately inferred the emotions of storytellers labeled \"formerly incarcerated,\" and increased their support for criminal justice reform. These effects held for conservative and liberal participants alike. However, the film had no effect on feelings of compassion. Together, these results demonstrate the power of narrative interventions to not only increase empathic accuracy for members of a severely stigmatized group, but to increase support for reforms designed to improve their lives.</p>","PeriodicalId":20548,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":9.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America","FirstCategoryId":"103","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2322819121","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/10/21 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Nuanced portrayals of stigmatized groups in media have been shown to reduce prejudice. In an online experiment (N = 749), we tested whether a feature film depicting incarcerated peoples' experiences in the criminal justice system can increase a) empathic accuracy and compassion toward people who have been incarcerated and b) support for criminal justice reform. We measured baseline empathic accuracy via a well-validated task, where participants infer the emotions of people sharing stories about difficult life events. All storytellers were formerly incarcerated and students. However, in half the videos we labeled them as "formerly incarcerated" and in the remaining half as "college student." We then surveyed people's baseline attitudes toward criminal justice reform. Next, we assigned participants to watch one of three films. The intervention film chronicled the true stories of Black men on death row. Two docudramas of similar length served as control films. Finally, participants completed the empathic accuracy task and survey again and were given the opportunity to sign a petition. Compared to those who watched a control film, participants who watched the intervention film more accurately inferred the emotions of storytellers labeled "formerly incarcerated," and increased their support for criminal justice reform. These effects held for conservative and liberal participants alike. However, the film had no effect on feelings of compassion. Together, these results demonstrate the power of narrative interventions to not only increase empathic accuracy for members of a severely stigmatized group, but to increase support for reforms designed to improve their lives.
期刊介绍:
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), serves as an authoritative source for high-impact, original research across the biological, physical, and social sciences. With a global scope, the journal welcomes submissions from researchers worldwide, making it an inclusive platform for advancing scientific knowledge.