A new study has revealed that watching meaningful films can make people feel more prepared to deal with the challenges in life. Science Daily reports that the movies that we find moving and poignant make us want to be a better person, according to researchers from The Ohio State University. The findings suggest one of the reasons why people are inclined to watch films that make them sad, happy, or those that explore difficult subjects that may not always be uplifting.
The lead author and graduate student in communication at Ohio State, Jared Ott, explains, “Meaningful movies actually help people cope with difficulties in their own lives, and help them want to pursue more significant goals.” This research was designed to see how meaningful films affect people in the real world as opposed to other studies which have looked at how people react to them in a lab setting, according to co-author Michael Slater, professor of communication at Ohio State. He said, “We wanted to find out how people experience these movies in their everyday lives.”
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Aside from Ott and Slater, the study was conducted with former Ohio State graduate student Naomi Q.P. Tan and was recently published in the online journal “Mass Communication and Society”. They created two lists of 20 Hollywood fares: meaningful films and less meaningful films, all with high viewer ratings, with similar MPAA ratings (G, PG, R), and produced after 1985.
A variety of positive reactions, such as being able to accept human conditions better and making sense of the problems in life, were reportedly found when the 1,098 adult participants recalled watching meaningful films like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Up”. These movies were among the user-generated lists on movie site IMDB that were described using terms like “poignant,” “inspiring,” and “meaningful.” They were matched with those that were not described by users with the same terms like “Ratatouille,” “Fight Club,” and “Pulp Fiction”. The positive feedback was apparently less likely when they thought about seeing the latter.
“The findings suggest why many people see movies as more than just entertainment. Some films may help people cope and grow through difficult periods in their life [but they might only] recognize this effect years after they have seen a particular movie,” Ott said. Despite meaningful films having more positive effects than others, the research also showed that people can still find meaning in films that are just meant to be entertaining.
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