In a study, a film director sought to establish factors that influence the popularity of films. As a research design, the study examined the impact of gender and the type of film on psychological arousal. Gender and the type of film are two independent variables, whereas psychological arousal is the dependent variable. The psychological arousal is a parameter that indicates the degree to which viewers enjoy watching these movies. According to Deng, Chang, Yang, Huo, and Zhou (2016), differences in psychological arousal occur because emotional experience allows male viewers to prefer action movies, while emotional expressivity makes female viewers prefer romantic movies. Out of 40 viewers comprising 20 females and 20 males, half of the viewers in each gender (10 males and 10 females) watched Bridget Jones’ Diary, while the other half of viewers (10 males and 10 females) watched Memento. Bridget Jones’ Diary represents romantic movies, whereas Memento represents action movies. The research design would enable the film director to determine the effect of the type of film and gender on psychological arousal, which is the popularity of movies in the market. Therefore, the study employed bar charts as a visualization method in comparing the means of psychological arousal based on the type of film and gender.
Description of Observations
Type of Film
Comparison of the mean ratings of psychological arousal using a bar chart shows that the two movies have different impacts on viewers. The bar chart (figure 1) offers an effective way of visualizing data since it depicts the relationship between data on continuous and categorical scales. In the visualization of data, the bar chart (figure 1) shows that Memento causes more psychological arousal (M = 25.5) than Bridget Jones’ Diary (M = 14.8). The difference in the means by over 10 scores depicts the significance of the type of film in influencing psychological arousal in viewers. Essentially, this finding implies that Bridget Jones’ Diary is more popular among viewers when compared to Memento.
Classification of these movies shows that Memento is a thriller, whereas Bridget Jones’ Diary is a romantic movie. According to Zacks (2014), action, suspense, virtual future, bottlenecks, and tricks are major elements in a movie that triggers enhanced psychological arousal among viewers. Since action films have more of these elements than romantic movies, they cause heightened psychological arousal among viewers. For instance, the presence of the element of action in a movie engages the mind of viewers to participate actively in various thrilling scenes of movies. Deckers (2015) holds that psychological arousal reflects the extent to which viewers engage and interpret themes in movies. Therefore, the visualization of data reveals that action movies are more popular than romantic movies as demonstrated by differences in the mean of psychological arousal of Memento and Bridget Jones’ Diary.
Gender
Gender comparison of the psychological arousal of both movies reveals that there are some differences. The bar chart (figure 2) shows that male viewers experienced a higher level of psychological arousal (M = 21.50) than female viewers (M = 18.55). When compared to the difference in psychological arousal due to the type of film, gender has a minimal effect on the popularity of both action and romantic movies. Deng et al. (2016) established that watching movies that induce an emotional response makes males elicit more psychological arousal than females. However, female viewers have a higher level of emotional expressivity when they watch a movie with negative emotions. In this view, the film director should know that gender is also a determinant of the popularity of movies.
Conclusion
Bar charts are useful in the visualization of data because they depict variation in the means of psychological arousal caused by the type of film and gender. Bar charts demonstrated that the action movie (Memento) triggers more psychological arousal than the romantic movie (Bridget Jones’ Diary). Moreover, male viewers exhibit a higher level of psychological arousal than females. Thus, the film director ought to understand that action movies and male viewers associate with the popularity of movies.
References
Deckers, L. (2015). Motivation: Biological, psychological, and environmental (4th ed.). London, United Kingdom: Psychology Press.
Deng, Y., Chang, L., Yang, M., Huo, M., & Zhou, R. (2016). Gender differences in emotional response: Inconsistency between experience and expressivity. PLoS ONE, 11(6), 1-12.
Zacks, J. M. (2014). Flicker: Your brain on movies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.