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Superhero films can encourage prosocial behavior, new study finds

A new study published in The Journal of Psychology suggests that superhero films, despite often depicting violence, can promote prosocial behavior — actions meant to benefit others, such as sharing or helping. By showing a specific scene from the 2016 film Batman v Superman, the researchers found that viewers who identified with Batman or believed his actions were morally justified were more likely to help others in a subsequent task.

While previous research has shown that prosocial media can encourage helpfulness and cooperation, violent media has typically been associated with increased aggression. Superhero films, a genre with widespread popularity, often mix these two elements. The researchers wanted to explore how these films might affect viewers, particularly in terms of empathy and moral reasoning, which could influence whether viewers engage in prosocial behavior despite the violence on screen.

The study involved two experiments, each with 200 Brazilian participants, who were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. The experimental group watched a 3-minute and 47-second clip from the movie Batman v Superman, in which Batman fights multiple armed villains to rescue Martha, a captured character. This scene was chosen for its combination of violent action and a clear prosocial motive—saving a life.

In contrast, the control group watched a neutral video that featured colorful shapes forming various patterns. This video, which had no violent or prosocial content, was meant to serve as a baseline for comparison.

After watching the videos, participants were asked to complete a prosocial behavior task. They were told they were helping with another study by distributing pieces of chocolate to future participants who liked the treat. The number of chocolate pieces each participant allocated served as a measure of their prosocial behavior.

The researchers also measured participants' levels of empathy after viewing the videos. To do this, they used a scale that assessed three different types of empathy: affective empathy (sharing another person's emotions), cognitive empathy (understanding another's perspective), and associative empathy (identifying with the character in the video).

In the second experiment, the researchers introduced an additional measure—moral justification. Participants were asked to evaluate whether the violent actions taken by Batman were justified. This was done using a series of statements such as "The main character's actions were necessary" or "It was impossible to deal with this situation in any other way."

In the first study, participants who watched the superhero scene reported higher levels of empathy than those in the control group. More specifically, viewers showed increased associative empathy — they identified more with Batman and his mission to save the hostage. This identification with the hero was the key factor that indirectly boosted prosocial behavior.

While participants in the superhero group didn't give significantly more chocolate than those in the control group overall, the effect of the movie on prosocial behavior was seen through the increase in empathy. This suggests that feeling connected to the hero and understanding their motives could encourage viewers to be more generous and helpful in their real-world actions.

The second study revealed that moral reasoning also played a role in prosocial behavior. Participants who watched the superhero scene were more likely to believe that Batman's violent actions were justified. This belief, in turn, was linked to higher prosocial behavior, as measured by the chocolate allocation task.

Essentially, when participants viewed the hero's actions as morally right, they were more inclined to engage in helpful behavior themselves. The researchers theorized that the portrayal of superheroes as protectors and defenders likely led viewers to accept their violent actions as necessary for the greater good, which then translated into a willingness to help others.

In short, simply watching the superhero scene did not directly cause participants to behave more prosocially. Instead, the participants who empathized with the characters or believed the violent actions were justified were more likely to act in a helpful way afterward.

While the study offers valuable insights into the effects of superhero films, it is not without limitations. One limitation is the use of an online experiment, which may reduce the level of control over participants' environments and behavior. For instance, distractions during the video could have affected participants' responses. Additionally, the study only used a single method of measuring prosocial behavior (the chocolate allocation task), which may not fully capture the complexity of prosocial actions in real-world situations.

Another limitation is the sample size and demographic characteristics. The participants were predominantly young adults from Brazil, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other age groups or cultural contexts. Future research could address this by replicating the study with different age groups and in various cultural settings.

The study, "Superhero Films' Impacts on Prosocial Behavior: The Mediating Role of State-Empathy and Violence Justification," was authored by Isabella Leandra Silva Santos and Carlos Eduardo Pimentel.

https://www.psypost.org/superhero-films-can-encourage-prosocial-behavior-new-study-finds/

So basically, those who identified with Batman's actions in the BvS warehouse scene as necessary under the circumstances tend to be more empathetic and likely to help others. Normally I wouldn't think you'd need to organise a psychological study to hypothesise this. If I'm being honest, you can use other superhero films with similar scenes to hypothesise such a theory. On the other hand, it does amuse me that the impression I get from this report - whether it was intended or not - is those who criticise the warehouse scene e.g. "Batman wouldn't do this or that" are likely coming from people who have zero empathy themselves. From what I've seen of the disgusting vitriol towards Snyder over the years, I would not at all be surprised.

I found this fan-made video uploaded less than a week ago by a B89 fan. A very nicely done animated piece that gets the atmosphere and mood of Burton's Gotham City right. I love the attention to detail, from the glimpses of the Joker to the doctor who helped in the tampering of the chemicals at Axis going missing. This pays tribute to the Burtonverse much better than any of the recent comics and films.

Check it out:

I watched Late Night With the Devil on Netflix. It's set in the Seventies about a late night talk show host who is struggling with the death of his wife and trying to boost ratings for his failing show that he interviews a girl possessed by a demon on live television. The period piece was done extremely well as were the old school-style special effects, and the pacing flows quickly. What makes the film effective is it's presented as a recording of the talk show and displays the episode unraveling into chaos, with the behind-the-scenes drama unfolding in black and white. Very well acted despite a largely unknown cast and great narration by Michael Ironside chronicling the TV host's rise to fame before the infamous episode.

It's better than a lot of horror movies nowadays. Highly recommended.

Great video analysing and paying tribute to Marshall Rogers for his work on Batman, and the impact that he and Englehart had on Batman comics.

Zack Snyder interviewed Frank Miller for Inverse.com, and they talked in depth about superheroes being a modern-day mythology. This interview is more about Miller looking back at his career and his work influenced comics as a more sophisticated medium, and DKR bore a chunk of the conversation.

Some of the highlights include Snyder and Miller on "deconstruction", rebuilding Batman and the differences between him and Superman:

Zack Snyder: I have this theory that in the modern world, we lost myth, and so we use comics and superheroes to kind of decode the problems of our times. That is to say, in the ancient world, if a volcano went off, you'd be like, "Oh, there's a god in that mountain and he's mad." Now, if a terrorist flies a plane into the World Trade Center, it's harder to make a myth out of it, but comics might allow that sort of thinking. I don't know how you feel about that.

Frank Miller: Well, I believe the birth of religion and mythology was basically a cave dweller not understanding lightning and having to anthropomorphize nature. Religion was the precursor to science.

Along the way where all these gods and heroes were created. The Greeks just couldn't stop puking them out. They had a legion of superheroes going on their own, and those really stayed in people's heads. And the superhero universes essentially are this wild amalgam of sort of recreated Greek, Nordic, and Hebrew mythologies.

Zack Snyder: Yeah, they've really endured. And so, is your feeling that to talk about mythology in comics is really kind of 101, because we're all still living in the shadow of those gods? So maybe that's what it is, if you deconstruct, you kind of peel away, and by peeling away you really get to the mythological part of it.

Frank Miller: That's the best way to put it. I've always found "deconstruct" to be a problematic term because people usually assume that when you deconstruct something, you're tearing it to pieces, and that's only half of what deconstruction really is because it's tearing its essence and then rebuilding it stronger than ever before. I mean, I wrote Batman cynically, in order to mock the character. I basically was just looking to get rid of all the sh*t and restore him to the kind of stature he had in my mind when I was seven years old.

Zack Snyder: The Dark Knight Returns is often credited with revolutionizing how Batman is perceived. But also my takeaway from Dark Knight Returns is exactly the same as you just stated it. Some people would say it's deconstruction, and I understand that you might say that, but for me it was restorative. I'm like: That's my Batman. The Batman I want to see is that Batman, not the bullsh*t Batman who's a joke. What were your key influences when creating a darker, older, more psychologically complex Batman?

Frank Miller: The notorious old TV show, the one with Adam West and Burt Ward. I mean, that was a goof. It was basically a snide take on stuff that I remember that I absolutely loved. I loved the comic book characters and the TV show was constantly telling you how stupid the comic book was.

Zack Snyder: Yeah. Because it was counterculture against authority and they sort of saw Batman as the man. And so I just felt like they were making the man out to be sort of an idiot.

Frank Miller: Yeah. So, without question, I was rejecting that damn show more than anything when I did Dark Knight Returns.

Zack Snyder: You were like, literally, this is the opposite. This guy is the opposite of what you think he is.

Frank Miller: Yeah, this guy is no joke.

Zack Snyder: One of the things you do in Dark Knight Returns with the voiceover, in the sort of very specific language that he uses in combat and how he analyzes the combat that he's in, you go like, "OK, this guy is 100% more complicated in his combat style even, than you you can imagine."

Frank Miller: I look at Batman as the self-made superhero. Bruce Wayne made himself Batman by studying, training, and exploring. Extraordinary feats come easily to Superman. He can fly and then the rest. I mean, just in terms of Superman, it's like you think you can do it. He can fly for god's sake. Whereas Batman needs a goddamn car. I enjoy an effort.

Zack Snyder: The one thing I really loved about the way you did Superman also was, he's sort of a tool of the U.S. government, but the Superman also in your version is self-aware. He knows what he's doing. Because everyone's like, "Oh, he's like a big boy scout." Well, it's like, no, he understands the political complexity of the whole thing, and he's just done the math and goes, "Look, this is the only way we are able to exist is if we do it this way."

Frank Miller: Superman is an apologia worrywart and he's concerned with keeping the world from blowing itself up. Batman's this Dionysian character who's out for blood, and they're perfect opposites in that Batman is the reckless ego and Superman is the fearful superego.

Zack Snyder: That's cool. I really love it, because I love that Superman is in charge of keeping this... In a lot of ways, the children are tearing the preschool down, they're setting it on fire, and they're out of their minds, and he's really just trying to wrangle us so we don't kill ourselves and Batman's just like, "No, that's what it is to be alive," you know? That's cool.

Frank Miller: Batman is the happier character.

Zack Snyder: 100%. Yeah! 100%.

Another exchange involves Snyder and Miller talking about canon and their criticism over absolute rules for characters only stifle creativity. In this instance, Miller explains his thought process behind Batman using guns in DKR.

Zack Snyder: That's cool. Look, you know how I feel about the work. It's incredible. So, the heroes in your stories are often morally ambiguous or even sometimes antiheroes. How do you view the evolution of the hero in modern storytelling, and why do you gravitate toward these more complex heroes?

Frank Miller: I regard defining the hero as being the center and purpose of my work, and in order to find something you have to test it, prod it, attend it, and find new ways to portray it. And I find sometimes having a hero do wrong or take a wrong course is the best way to ultimately define what a hero is, especially with my Daredevil and my portrait of Superman. It's again the deconstruction thing where you can get to a character's essence by having them wander far astray. With Daredevil: Born Again, he essentially has a nervous breakdown. He loses control of his violence and his darker tendencies and essentially has to lose everything before he can turn into a better character.

Zack Snyder: Yeah, that's cool. For me, if someone says in a hero's canon, he's not allowed to do blank, I immediately want him to do that thing because I feel like if a character can't withstand breaking his own canon, then he's not really worth anything, you know?

Frank Miller: Right. And then what defines him? I mean, at first, Zack, I approached this kind of thing almost like just a rebellious adolescent. I was told Batman could never fire a gun. I was told by the editor with absolute conviction. So, I came up with an excuse for him to fire a rifle, even though it was just a grappling hook into the side of a building, but it was just to get that picture of him holding it. I don't like these absolute dicta.

Zack Snyder: Well, it's cool because if you can create a scenario where Batman has to shoot a gun and someone says, "Well, Batman can't shoot a gun." And you're like, "Well, what should he do in this scenario then?" And then if someone says, "Well, don't put him in that scenario." I'm like, "Well, that's a weak character." You can't have a character where we're modifying this scenario because he can't exist in it. That's not realistic. Now we're just creating scenarios that his morality can work inside of, rather than the other way around.

Frank Miller: Absolutely right, Zack. That's not creative.

Zack Snyder: And I think that's what Dark Knight did for me, it was like, "Oh wait, Batman can actually live in my world," which I think was cool.

Frank Miller: Batman can't shoot somebody dead, he cannot murder, but that's a completely different issue than using essentially a tool.

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/frank-miller-zack-snyder-interview

It's a great interview. I agree with both men when it comes to the argument that certain characters should never be written in a scenario at all. Looking for a deus ex machina or copping out just to uphold absolute ideas is cheap storytelling. Whether the execution has been pulled off, however, is another story.

I'm still not crazy about the idea of Superman as a government agent, but then again I can still acknowledge he's in a no-win situation - if he overthrows the government, he's abusing his power. I don't necessarily agree with the criticism of the Sixties TV show Batman as an idiot, but like it or not DKR and its impact was a response against the public perception of Batman at the time.

With comments like these, you appreciate how Christopher Reeve knew Superman, as a concept, was much deeper than the general consensus gives him credit for. Anyone who views Superman as nothing more than happy-go-lucky is not only doing a disservice to the character, they're doing a disservice to Reeve's portrayal if that's all they see him.

I've been listening to small portions of the Star Trek Movie Memories audiobook read by William Shatner, and I listened to Harve Bennett's recollection of Gene Roddenberry giving strong pushback against the premise for The Wrath of Khan. Roddenberry was even suspected of leaking Spock's death to fanzines which initially sparked outrage among the Star Trek faithful.

I learned Bennett watched the original show and picked Space Seed as his favourite episode, and thought it laid the groundwork for a cinematic follow-up, but addressed Roddenberry's opposition to the film by claiming Star Trek isn't a military show and is against violence. Bennett politely rebuked Roddenberry's claims, as Star Trek always had had a chain of command involving admirals, captains, commanders, lieutenants and so on, and the original show had tons of violence in lots of episodes i.e. Space Seed ended with Kirk fighting Khan. Bennett speculated Roddenberry said these contradictory statements because he may have had experienced some new enlightened philosophy that fueled his inspiration for the plot in TMP, which Bennett commended for having.

Roddenberry deserves recognition for creating Star Trek, but he's not infallible. The problem is Star Trek's success on TV is hard to replicate to general moviegoing audiences, and perhaps the existential plotline of TMP not being well-received at the time made him bitter. Even one of the writers who worked on both TOS and TNG - David Jerrold - called him a great revisionist when speaking to Shatner during the Chaos on the Bridge documentary. I understand Roddenberry's frustration, and I understand he felt offended when he lost creative control in the early Eighties, but he would've been better off criticising the premise without making statements that clashed with details in the original show.

Not that this character was ever in the mix back in those days, but I reckon Biehn would've been a better fit to play Deadshot. He had this grit and intensity that would've better off with that sort of character than Batman.