Superhero Movies Are Good for Social Behavior, Study Finds

Superheroes are saving the real world too.

A study published in The psychology magazine in August found that superhero movies can promote prosocial behaviors: actions that benefit other people or society as a whole.

The researchers wanted to see how films typically filled with violence affect viewers in terms of empathy and moral reasoning.

The study included two experiments, each with 200 Brazilian participants, who were assigned to an experimental group or a control group. Those in the experimental group watched a 3 minute and 47 second clip from 2016. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” where Ben Affleck’s Batman Rescue a captured woman from armed villains.

Meanwhile, the control group watched a video of colorful shapes forming various patterns.

All participants then had to complete a prosocial behavior task, which involved distributing pieces of chocolate to future participants. Their measure of prosocial behavior was determined based on the number of chocolates they handed out.

Additionally, participants’ empathy levels were measured after watching the videos. The scale has three types of empathy: affective empathy (sharing another person’s feelings), cognitive empathy (understanding another person’s feelings), and associative empathy (relating to another person based on their feelings).

The second experiment involved moral justification, where participants had to decide if they thought Batman was justified in being violent in the film.

The results found that participants who watched the scene from “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” had higher levels of empathy. They had the highest associative empathy, meaning they related to Batman becoming violent to save someone.

However, participants who watched the movie clip did not give significantly more chocolate than participants who watched the colorful shapes video.

Still, the superhero group scored higher on the empathy scale overall.

Meanwhile, the second study found that moral reasoning played an important role in tests of prosocial behavior. Participants in the superhero camp found Batman’s actions to be moral and justified and therefore were more likely to do things to help other people.

The study pointed out some flaws in the results, such as possible distractions that may have occurred when participants were watching the videos.

It was also mentioned that chocolate distribution was the only prosocial behavior task used in the study, and that task is not the decisive factor in determining prosocial actions in the real world.

Last year, a different study of the International Journal of Research found that superhero movies have several negative effects on viewers, including increased aggression, decreased attention span, decreased critical thinking skills, increased anxiety, and stress, a decrease in physical activity, sexism, racism and more.

However, this latest study from The Journal of Psychology, written by Isabella Leandra Silva Santos and Carlos Eduardo Pimentel, shows that there are many more positive aspects to watching superhero movies than most people probably realize.

And besides the rare exceptions like “Joker 2” most superhero movies like “Deadpool and Wolverine” They continue to achieve success in the theater after all these years.