Study Finds Film Enjoyment Is Contagious

Hugh Pickens writes "A report from Science Daily says that scientists have proven that the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences by influencing and gradually synchronizing viewer emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant's evaluation of the overall experience — the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie. In a series of experiments, researchers found that people watching a film together appeared to evaluate the film within the same broad mood and another study found that synchrony of evaluations can be traced to glances at the other person during the film and adoption of the observed expressions. 'By mimicking expressions, people catch each other's moods leading to a shared emotional experience. That feels good to people and they attribute that good feeling to the quality of the movie,' said one researcher."

not that surprising

[OzRoy]

One of my favorite comedy movies is "Flying High" (or Airplane to non Australians), but those types of movies are only really great when you see it with lots of people. On your own they are kind of lame.

another blindingly obvious conclusion

[petes_PoV]

presumably the next grant they get (to continue their subsidised film-watching) will be to research if sad films make you melancholy and happy films make you happy.

some research departments simply have too much spare money

I'm not so sure the movie part is that important

[Bones3D_mac]

More likely, this is a common trait in humans to improve our chances of gaining acceptance with others by attempted to sympathize with the emotional state of everyone else. It's almost a conditioned reaction. For example, how many people usually break out laughing at funerals when everyone else is all sorrow or silence? Such an act would render you an outcast even without the overhead of learned manners. It's a complete and total abstraction of the majority mood.

It's probably the same reason why people also tend to not trust those who seem happy and smiling all the time.

Just film enjoyment?

[jez9999]

In general, humans like to share in emotions with other people, which is why groups of people tend to laugh together, cry together, smile together, get angry together, etc.

Try cheering a sports team on on your own, vs. with a group of other people, and see which feels naturally easier.

Re:Genious.

[morgan_greywolf]

But, even on /. we knew this empirically, the so called groupthink.

There's groupthink on Slashdot?

So you mean, that, like Apple may not be the greatest company on earth, 2008 may not be the year of Linux on the desktop, Vista may actually be an okay operating system, Microsoft isn't necessarily t3h 3v1l, and in Soviet Russia,
films may not necessarily enjoy you?!

Wow, that's just a lot to think about.

Re:So That Explains...

[owlnation]

His best work in my opinion is "Forgotten Silver". That's a real masterpiece, the fact that it had a Professor at a NZ film school giving lectures on Colin McKenzie the day after broadcast is hilarious. (He should, of course, have been immediately fired)

His real skill is in production though. The Lord of the Rings movies are an amazing production. To organize that many people, for that length of time, in a small country unused to filmmaking, takes serious talent. Try and organize a short movie yourself, and then bow down at the feet of Mr Jackson. It's waaay harder than you think.