Film intervention increases empathic understanding of formerly incarcerated people and support for criminal justice reform.

ABSTRACT: Nuanced portrayals of stigmatized groups in media have been shown to reduce prejudice. In an online experiment (N = 749), we tested whether a feature film depicting incarcerated peoples' experiences in the criminal justice system can increase a) empathic accuracy and compassion toward people who have been incarcerated and b) support for criminal justice reform. We measured baseline empathic accuracy via a well-validated task, where participants infer the emotions of people sharing stories about difficult life events. All storytellers were formerly incarcerated and students. However, in half the videos we labeled them as "formerly incarcerated" and in the remaining half as "college student." We then surveyed people's baseline attitudes toward criminal justice reform. Next, we assigned parti

SUBMITTER: Reddan MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11536071 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature