Research says meaningful movies may help us face hardships
Watching movies can often become something that many of us look forward to, especially after a tiring day. This activity allows us to relax, disconnect, and have a good time. When you watch movies, you experience different emotions. Like sadness, anger, happiness, and kilig. But, did you know there’s a certain genre that can inspire motivation?
Movies can help us make sense of our personal problems?
According to a study from Ohio Research University, meaningful movies can make us feel more prepared to deal with life’s challenges. And, want to be a better person. The more moving and poignant a film is, the more we are able to cope with life’s difficulties.
Lead author Jared Ott added,
“Meaningful movies actually help people cope with difficulties in their own lives, and help them want to pursue more significant goals.”
In fact, several studies have observed how people react to watching meaningful films or clips from films in a lab setting. However, the researchers designed the study to see how these films affect people in the real world. In addition to this, co-author Michael Slate said that there’s barely enough research about this topic.
The team gave a list of 20 Hollywood films with one more meaningful and the other less meaningful to participants. The list of meaningful films included Hotel Rwanda, Schindler’s List, and Slumdog Millionaire. These are the ones that movie site IMDB recommends as poignant, inspiring, and meaningful.
Helping people cope and accept the human conditions
After that, they distributed a survey with a set of questions asking how the movies connected with each one of the participants. Results showed that participants said that the film helped them feel like struggles in life are for a reason. Aside from that, it also made them more easily handle difficult situations with grace and courage.
How did meaningful movies have these positive effects? The study discovered key elements of these films. These also include poignancy, the mixture of happiness and sadness, emotional range, ability to make people feel elevated. And, of course, inspired by watching them.
Some meaningful and inspiring movies you can binge on Netflix. The Pursuit of Happyness, Theory of Everything, Three Idiots, The Karate Kid, Braveheart, and Silver Linings Playbook.
If you know other uplifting movies that one must watch, feel free to suggest them to us in the comment section.
