While superhero movies have been found to promote prosocial behaviour, docudramas could have the power to increase feelings of empathy, especially towards people who are stigmatised in society.

So reports a study led by psychology professor Jamil Zaki and Jennifer Lynn Eberhardt, a social psychologist with expertise in racial bias and unconscious prejudice, from Stanford University.

Published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study examined how Destin Daniel Cretton’s drama film “Just Mercy” influenced viewers’ perceptions. Starring Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx, the film tells the true story of Bryan Stevenson who, as a young lawyer, decided to fight for the release of Walter McMillian, a Black man unjustly sentenced to death in Alabama.

To measure the film’s impact, the researchers asked participants to watch one- to three-minute-long videos featuring men who had been incarcerated in real life, before and after viewing “Just Mercy”. Participants were then asked to rate the emotions of the men in the videos. These results were then compared to the real feelings expressed by the men as they told their stories (as told to the researchers).

The results were unequivocal: participants showed greater empathy with ex-prisoners and were more inclined to support reform of the penal system. Specifically, those who watched “Just Mercy” were 7.66% more likely to sign a petition in favour of restoring voting rights to people with criminal records.

“One of the hardest things for groups of people who face stigma, including previously incarcerated people, is that others don’t perceive their experiences very accurately,” said Zaki, the paper’s senior author.

“One way to combat that lack of empathy for stigmatised groups of people is to get to know them. This is where media comes in, which has been used by psychologists for a long time as an intervention.”

Eberhardt adds that “narratives move people in ways that numbers don’t”. Indeed, an earlier study the researcher worked on showed that presenting statistics on racial disparities could sometimes backfire, reinforcing prejudice rather than reducing it.

In contrast, this study demonstrates the effectiveness of storytelling, and that empathetic reactions do not differ according to the origin or political preferences of the person sharing the story.

The researchers also found that the film’s impact was independent of the viewer’s political orientation. “When people experience detailed personal narratives, it opens their mind and heart to the people telling those narratives and to the groups from which those people come,” Zaki concluded.