Film and Social Change: Psychological Insights for Leveraging Impact Beth Karlin Jazmine Alameddine School of Social Ecology University of California Irvine
Film and Social Change: Psychological Insights for Leveraging Impact
Jul 10, 2015
Although films have been engaging and inspiring audiences throughout their history, there is a recent shift in the media landscape over the past decade towards Hollywood taking a more active role in promoting social action through film. Companies such as Participant Media (An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc., etc.) coordinate every film release with "extensive social action and advocacy programs which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action." This is a relatively new field and little psychological work has been done in this area. Movies clearly have a role in inspiring/educating the masses about important social and environmental issues, but it is as yet unclear how to best go about this work. Behavioral insights from the field of psychology will be reviewed in an attempt to integrate them into the growing discourse of film and social change. The film featured in this session and a few others will be used as case studies to illustrate this work in both a theoretical and applied setting. Film has been studied extensively as entertainment, as narrative, and as cultural event, but the study of film as psychological intervention is still in its infancy and prime for growth.
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Film and Social Change:
Psychological Insights for Leveraging Impact
Beth Karlin Jazmine Alameddine
School of Social Ecology University of California Irvine
Transformational Media Lab, UCI
Transformation
Media
System
Social
Individual Community
Industrial
Mission: Our lab studies how media is (and can be) used to transform individuals, communities, and systems.
Components of Transformation
1. Compelling story
2. Charismatic leaders
3. Infrastructure
4. Opportunity
R. Matthew, 2002
Components of Transformation
1. Compelling story
2. Charismatic leaders
3. Infrastructure
4. Opportunity
Documentary Film
History of Documentary
“We believe that the cinema’s capacity for getting around, for observing and selecting from life itself, can be exploited in a new and vital art form”
John Grierson First Principles of Documentary, 1932
History of Documentary
Romanticism
historical cinéma vérité
Propagandist
Documentaries Today
“docu-ganda”
Director as subject
social action campaigns
Theatrical release
Impacts of Documentary Film
Can psychology help?
Draws viewers in
Energize about the issue
Shift from aware to action
Strengthen organizations
policy changes or shifts in dialogue
Fledgling Fund, 2008
Literature Review
1. Construal Level Theory
2. Theory of Emotions
3. Dual Processing Model
4. Protection Motivation Theory
5. Message Framing
Psychological Distance
– Spatial
– Temporal
– Social
– Hypothetical
Information that is HERE and NOW given to ME with HIGH CERTAINTY reduces distance.
Construal Level Theory
(Trope & Liberman, 2010)
Plutchik’s Theory of Emotions 1. Emotions are adaptive and evolutionary 2. 8 basic emotions (and many deriviatives) 3. Pairs of polar opposites (positive/negative affect) 4. Emotions vary in similarity, intensity, etc.
(Plutchik, 1980)
Dual Process Model
Cognitive Appraisal
www.cred.columbia.edu
Affective Response
www.cred.columbia.edu
Protection Motivation Theory
Perceive Appraise Respond
• Threat appraisal • Coping appraisal
Protection Motivation Theory
• Threat Appraisal – Threat Severity
– Threat Vulnerability
• Coping Appraisal
– Behavioral Efficacy
– Response Efficacy
Protection Motivation Theory
High Coping Low Coping
High Threat Response Anxiety
Low Threat Apathy Indifference
Rogers, 1983
Message Framing • The way in which a message is framed affects persuasion.
– Affect Emotional reactivity – Emotional reactivity changes information processing
(Keller, Lipkus, & Rimer, 2003; Smith & Petty, 1996)
• Mixed messages work! + affect, - information - affect, + information
www.cred.columbia.edu
Current Research
• Goal: Investigate the use of psychological principles in documentary film to better understand how presentation choices can leverage impacts
• Approach: Content analysis of four documentaries: – An Inconvenient Truth – Invisible Children – Manufactured Landscapes – Supersize Me
Content Analysis - Codes
• Temporal scope (current, near future, distant future) • Spatial scope (local, nonlocal, global) • Identifiability (one person, many people, animal, nature) • Personal relevance (first person, second person, third person) • Interconnectedness (isolated, systemic) • Risk certainty (definite, possible) • Positive/negative affect (music, imagery, content, tone) • Surprise/Expectancy violation • Information (statistics, stories) • Problem orientation (cause, effect, solution) • Agent of change (individual, collective, government, business)
The Road to Engagement
• Construal Level Theory (Psychological distance) – Identifiably – Interconnectedness – Personal relevance – Risk certainty
• Theory of Emotion – Affective priming (emotional reactivity)
• Dual Process Model (Education) – Cognitive (facts/statistics) – Affective (stories/images)
• Protection Motivation Theory (Empowerment) – Evidence of Success (what has been done) – Solution (what is being done/can be done) – Specific Action (what the viewer can do)
Analysis / Findings
• Analysis • Use of multiple coders for increased reliability • Discrepancies resolved through discussion • Iterative triangulation (Lewis, 1998) - Connecting
themes to theory and back again
• Findings • Identified several recurring codes/themes in data • Significant variation in codes between films • Developed 5 key insights for leveraging impact • Integrated insights into previous impact model
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
African Children
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
- affect, - info (data)
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
- affect, - info (story)
Five Insights for Leveraging Impact
1. Reduce distance to increase level of involvement
2. Elicit emotion to create receptivity
3. Provide information to increase awareness
4. Empower audiences to engage behavior
5. Combine elements for maximum effect
Leveraging Impact
Emotion
Education
Empowerment
Next Steps
1. Compelling story
2. Charismatic leaders
3. Infrastructure
4. Opportunity
Film
Campaign
Test clips in experimental setting
Campaign components
Quantifying “the ripple effect”
Latent impacts of participation
Thank you!
Beth Karlin [email protected]
The film is the greatest teacher because it teaches us not only through the brain but through the whole body.
Pudovkin, 1948
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