Trivison_Sydney

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1 Family Values as Moral Reasoning in Film Sydney Trivison Department of Psychology PSY3213L: Research Methods Lab, University of Florida Dr. Marina A. Klimenko March 31, 2023

2 Abstract Morality in film is a highly complex but relevant topic. With films being a large part of the entertainment system, it leads to the point that this study on the prevalence of different moral reasonings in film is one that can work to connect audiences to the films that they are watching. For the purpose of this study, the research will be focused on two genres, romance and adventure, as well as the moral reasoning of family values. 30 films will be included in this research, 15 from the romance genre and 15 from the adventure genre. The intent of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in how often the two genres used family values as moral reasoning as opposed to the other six potential reasonings. More specifically, this study was designed to see if the adventure genre had a higher percentage of family values (compared to other reasonings) than the romance genre. This research found that there was not a statistically significant difference between the percentages of family values in romance movies and adventure movies. Family Values as Moral Reasoning in Film Morality has been used in film and other media as a source of reasoning for storylines and themes. The fictional world of film is one that can be taken literally, so the reasoning behind actions throughout the plot will be analyzed by an audience to measure if they are clear and morally sound. Each movie or television genre uses the different subcategories of morality to further its own plot and each genre will use the subcategory that fits its end goal of how the film should progress. Even though this is so common, there is not much research that focuses on how specific themes of morality are related to different genres of film. The different uses of moral reasoning across movie genres can present ethical questions that can apply to the real world as well as potential consequences which may be overlooked without a visual representation (Shaw

3 2012). This study specifically focused on how different genres of film use different categories of moral reasoning and the relationship between these differences. Films consist of many underlying values, so understanding these values in relation to the way that the film uses moral reasoning can be a key to knowing how the film functions socially (Gillett 2012). A film’s social function refers to how an audience interacts with the film and how it impacts those who view it, so different moral reasonings will resound differently to various audiences. With the importance of social function, it is also important to acknowledge the subcategories of moral reasoning that are used in understanding human behavior and can also direct those same behaviors (Arbi 2022). When an audience resonates with a line of reasoning, they connect with the film in a way that they may not have previously. This study hones in on the subcategory of family values, but other similar studies have been done that focus on political values and the ideals of loyalty and found that children’s movies had higher rates of using the loyalty line of reasoning over other forms (Gehman et al. 2021). Morals in film have a significance that goes beyond a plot because films are able to become a form of teaching ethics, and since these lessons are interpreted differently by different groups of people, the subcategory of moral reasoning can determine whether the lesson is accepted and understood (Erlidawati 2022). With a fuller understanding of previous studies that have been done on the relationship between morality and film, it leads to the point that the idea of family values in film is one that has not been focused on in prior research. This study added to a small collection of research on the topic of morality in film and involved two highly popular genres of film that have also not been studied previously. Morality in films is an area of media research that can aid filmmakers and audiences alike in creating and experiencing films that are engaging and meaningful. The end goal of a film is to appeal to the audience’s emotions and studying how different moral

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4 values are used in different genres can lead to new research on how successful movies that use certain forms of moral reasoning are in and outside of theaters. Method Research Design and Procedure The 30 movies used in this study were chosen through a random selection. Using the list of the top 50 movies in each genre from the Internet Movie Database, 15 movies from each were chosen with a random number generator (IMBd, 2023). The movies were compiled into a list and assigned a number based on their genre. Romance movies were numbered as ‘0’ and adventure movies were numbered as ‘1’. Each movie was watched for one hour and 30 minutes so that the majority of the plot was included. As each movie was watched, every instance of moral reasoning was marked down on a list. This list was separated by the seven categories of moral reasoning defined by Curry et al. (2019). The seven categories are family, group loyalty, reciprocity, bravery, respect for authority, fairness, and property rights. After recording each instance of moral reasoning and categorizing them based on what category the reasoning belonged to, the groupings aside from family values were all combined. The number of instances of family values being used was then compared to all other instances to calculate a percentage of how often family values were used as a source of moral reasoning in each film. Variables and Measures The predictor variable in this study was the genre of the movie which was split into two groups, romance films and adventure films. This nominal variable was important to the goal of the study which was to determine if adventure films used a higher proportion of family values as moral reasoning than romance films because it separated the two groups. The criterion variable that was tested for was the prevalence of family values as moral reasoning opposed to other

5 values. This variable was measured as an ordinal variable since the percentages show how each result varies from the others but they were not mathematically compared. The coding that was necessary for this study was limited to only coding the films used by genre. The films were classified as either ‘0’ or ‘1’ with ‘0’ representing romance films and ‘1’ representing adventure films. Results With this initial study on the relationship between film genre and the prevalence of family values as moral reasoning, there was a significant difference between the percentages in each genre, so the hypothesis was supported. The mean for the percentage of family values for romance movies was .4453, but for adventure movies, this mean was .6859. This difference in means suggested that across adventure movies, the usage of family values compared to other moral reasonings is more common than in romance movies. Table 1 Group Statistics: Percentage of family values in romance and adventure films Groups _________________ ‘0’ ‘1’ t df ______________________________________________ Percentage of .4453 .6859 -4.779** 26.543 Family Values (.1532) (.1206) Note. *=p≤ .05, **=p≤ .01. Standard Deviations appear in parentheses below means. A negative mean difference in this case translates to the group of films coded as ‘1’, which are adventure films, having a higher percentage of family values than the films coded ‘0’. Not only was there a difference between the prevalence of family values, this difference was significant with a difference of .24053 which favored the adventure films.

6 Discussion There are seven different defined subcategories of moral reasoning and this study focused on one in particular which was family values. Family values in morality are explained as “delivering benefits to kin” as well as acting to avoid harm coming to relatives (Curry et al. 2019). Both the romance and adventure genres used family values as reasoning relatively frequently, but for the purpose of this study, it was more important which genre used it more often. With the results of this study showing that adventure movies used family values as moral reasoning more often than romance movies did, the data supports the hypothesis that adventure movies rely on family values more than other moral reasonings. Since there has not been a significant amount of research completed on the topic of morality in films, the results of this study would need to be replicated a number of times with a variety of other films as well as other genres to definitively say that adventure movies rely on family values more than other genres. This study may have performed better with multiple researchers reviewing the films and then using the mean of those results as the percentage for each individual film since only having one researcher reviewing the films may not have been reliable. Another alteration that would aid the reliability of this study would be watching each film in its entirety as opposed to only watching one hour and 30 minutes. Reviewing each film from start to finish would be tedious, but would provide the most accurate results for a new study. Seeing as the results of this study supported the hypothesis, the results can be applied in two different facets. From a filmmaker’s perspective, they can view the results from successful movies in each genre and be able to use the same values in a new film. With only the results

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7 from this study, this would be applicable in the adventure film genre if a director wanted to know what motivations to use to support the actions of a protagonist or to support plot lines. The filmmaker would be able to reference this study to see that films from the top 50 list used family values as moral reasoning and then could apply that to their own film. Understanding an aspect of what has made certain movies successful will help filmmakers to ensure the success of their films. The results of this study can also be used by audiences of films. By knowing which genres use different moral reasoning, viewers can decide which moral reasoning resounds with them and can then choose a genre that fits their own ideas of morals. Future research on this topic would need to focus on not only other genres of film, but also other categories of moral reasoning. If other genres of film as well as other moral reasonings are studied, it will be easier to compare each category and understand which genre matches with each form of reasoning. Since there is not much research on morality in films, there are many different facets to still be explored. Aside from simply studying each moral reasoning in each genre, research could also focus on the success of movies in each genre that use different moral reasoning to determine if there is one moral reasoning that is more successful in resonating with large audiences. This study was one addition to a short list of research on this topic and there is much more research to be completed to provide a clear idea of the connection between morality and films.

8 References Arbi, A. P. (2022). Social Values Reflected From Tokyo Revengers Live-Action Movie. JURNAL HURRIAH: Jurnal Evaluasi Pendidikan Dan Penelitian , 3 (4), 37–44. https://doi.org/10.5806/jh.v3i4.112 Curry, O. S., Mullins, D. A., & Whitehouse, H. (2019). Is It Good to Cooperate? Testing the Theory of Morality-as-Cooperation in 60 Societies. Current Anthropology , 60 (1), 47–69. https://doi.org/10.1086/701478 Erlidawati, E., & Rahmah, S. (2022). The Educational Values in Fairy Tale Cartoon Film. JETLEE : Journal of English Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature , 2 (1). https://doi.org/10.47766/jetlee.v2i1.203 Gehman, R., Guglielmo, S., & Schwebel, D. C. (2021). Moral foundations theory, political identity, and the depiction of morality in children’s movies. PLOS ONE , 16 (3), e0248928. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248928 Gillett, P. (2012). Film and Morality . https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-4438-4194-8-sample.pdf Shaw, D. (2012). Morality and the Movies: Reading Ethics Through Film. In Google Books . Bloomsbury Publishing. https://books.google.com/books?id=InESBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PR3&ots=W13ivWQ7aU& dq=morality%20in%20movies&lr=lang_en&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false Top 50 Adventure Movies and TV Shows . (2023). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?genres=Adventure&ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 Top 50 Romance Movies . (2023). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&genres=romance

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