Influence of movie genre preference on empathy among emerging adults

Abstract

Movies are a major form of entertainment, watching movies affects people on a large scale. Given the introduction and progression of platforms for movie streaming the exposure is higher. This study aims to find the effects of movie genre preferences on empathy of the individual. Movie genre preferences are based on what the individual is mainly exposed to and would go back again to. For the purpose of this study most popular movie genres of family drama, comedy, horror and social problem genre were considered. Empathy is referred to as the ability to mirror the emotions and the cognitive processes of another person. The aim of this present paper is to study if there is any influence of movie genre preferences on empathy.  The tools used for this study include a socio-demographic sheet with questions about movie genre preference and Murthy Empathy Scale.  Sample considered for the present study was undergraduate students of ages 18- 21 studying in colleges of Bangalore. The research design used was 4X2 factorial design and the data was analysed using two way ANOVA. The results show that the influence of preferred movie genre on empathy (N=120,: df= 3,120: F= 2.958; p= .035) is significant at  0.05 level. The mean scores were found to be higher for individuals preferring social problem genre and lowest for individuals preferring horror. In conclusion the role of movie genre preferences is significantly influencing empathy levels and this opens up the possibility of understanding how movie genres that are preferred largely are influencing the society at large.