Learning Science from the Movies
Some say even horrid films can make the audience enthusiastic about science and make them want to learn. Then there are those who think bad science is always atrocious, causing movie-goers to misunderstand science, the process of science, and create negative stereotypes.
Let us imagine an alternative reality where G. I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra hadn’t been such an abysmal flop. According to the “we hate it” camp, it’s possible that there could have been a shift in public opinion about the safety of nanotechnology. But, in order to sort out how cranky with Hollywood scientists are realistically allowed to be, it’s important to understand how people learn science from the movies.
A new study suggests men and women differ in their ability to detect bad science in fictional movies, and the results go past a simple “yes they can,” or “no, they can’t.” It turns out men are more likely to notice science faux pas when they are central to the plot, whereas women pick up more factual flaws when they deal with things peripheral to the focus of the film.
“It may well be the case that women are highly influenced by mistaken science facts in a science fiction thriller set in space, whereas men are not. A different set of interests might result in mistaken medical information given in passing in a melodrama influencing a man’s beliefs more than a woman’s,” wrote the authors of the new study.
The analysis, carried out by Claudia A. Barriga, Michael A. Shapiro, and Marissa L. Fernandez, all from Cornell University, used 97 shopping-mall-goers with a penchant for sweet treats as their test subjects. Fifty-one men and 46 women, ranging from 18 to 68 years old, were asked to watch a series of four film clips and then answer a series of scientific questions before finally being “rewarded for their collaboration with a coupon for ice cream.”
The researcher’s original assumption was that bad science, when seen as a main component of the film, would be weeded out more effectively by the audience. The theory was that if the science was central to the plot, then people would remember where they had learned it, and realise it wasn’t necessarily true. However, if the incorrect science came as an offhand remark, the researchers assumed people would be less likely to remember where they had heard it, and might hold on to the incorrect idea.
“People appear to misattribute the origin of the new information to a more reliable source and “forget” its fictional source,” they wrote.
To test their idea, the researchers presented the same film clip to the test subjects in one of two ways, with either the science, or the interpersonal relationships between the characters, being played up. So for the same clip, the participant would either be watching a group of heroes heading off to save the earth from an impending asteroid, or a lovey-dovey mush-fest that happens to take place in space. (In the goal of journalistic integrity, my personal bias should by now be clear.)
Barriga, Shapiro and Fernandez found that when the science was presented as the main focus of the clip, men caught 3.23 +/- 0.28 (out of 8) of the errors, while women found 2.46 +/- .30 of the flaws. When the participants were told the story was a tale of love and lust, with lasers filling in as the sidekick, men detected 2.68 +/- 0.28 scientific inaccuracies, and women dismissed 3.14 +/- 0.31 of the errors. The men and women tested caught about the same number of errors, it just depended on how they were presented – even after controlling for things like general science knowledge and level of education.
The researchers weren’t exactly sure what to make of the fact that their data overthrew their main theory, but like any good scientist, finding the opposite of what they wanted just means they get to ask more questions. The researchers thought of at least one problem for their study, however, which my obvious movie bias should attest to.
“One possibility is that, for these science movies, the context manipulation may also have cued the participants to preferred or not-preferred content and genre. Men are known to prefer action adventure movies, whereas women prefer content about interpersonal relations and conflict. The manipulation that made science central or peripheral also may have cued participants that this was or was not going to be the kind of story they liked. As a result, men may have paid more attention in the context central condition, women more attention in the context peripheral condition.”
So it might be that men and women simply caught more scientific errors because they were paying better attention.
In any case, Barriga, Shapiro and Fernandez’s findings will be fantastic fodder the next time I need to weasel my way out of watching Grey’s Anatomy.
Barriga, C., Shapiro, M., & Fernandez, M. (2010). Science Information in Fictional Movies: Effects of Context and Gender Science Communication, 32 (1), 3-24 DOI: 10.1177/1075547009340338