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Source:
Richard Harris, 785-532-0610, rjharris@k-state.edu
http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/MediaGuide/harrisbio.html
News release prepared by: Megan Wilson, 785-532-6415, media@k-state.edu
Tuesday,
January 30, 2007
STUDY
BY K-STATE PROFESSOR SHOWS ROMANTIC FILMS NOT JUST FOR WOMEN
MANHATTAN
-- "Chick flicks" aren't just for women. According
to research by Richard Harris, professor of psychology at Kansas
State University, guys like romantic movies, too.
Harris
said his survey results are surprising and go against common stereotypes.
"Everyone
thinks that women like romantic movies and that they drag guys along
to them," he said. "What was significant was that the
guys also liked the movies, and that the choice to view a romantic
movie was usually made together as a couple, not just by the girl."
Using
a 7-point scale, Harris asked men and women to rate how much they
liked a romantic movie they had just watched. He also asked them
to rate how much they believed their date enjoyed the movie and
how much they think men and women in general like romantic movies.
Although
in the study both men and women generalized that men as a group
wouldn't like a romantic movie, when men rated the romantic flick
they had just seen, they gave it a 4.8 on Harris' scale. When women
were asked to rate how much their dates liked the movie, they gave
the same 4.8 rating.
"We
found that women really do enjoy romantic movies," Harris said.
"They rated how much they liked the movie at about 6 on the
7-point scale. However, we also found that men liked the movies
as well. They rated how much they liked the movie at about 4.8,
which is higher than most people would have guessed."
Harris
said one of the most interesting parts of the study was that men
and women both still used stereotypes when referring to each gender
in general. Harris said that although men and women thought the
specific man watching the movie enjoyed it, both still fell back
on stereotypes when they were asked about whether or not men as
a group would like the movie.
"When
we asked both men and women how men in general would like the movie,
both said that men would not like the movie, in spite of what they
had just said about themselves or their dates," Harris said.
Both
men and women, according to Harris, said women in general would
like the movie, which was consistent with results for what the women
said about their own enjoyment of the movie. Harris said that this
view also is a stereotype, but one that the study supports.
The
results of the study could be something moviemakers take into consideration
when making a romantic movie, Harris said.
"Movie
studios should recognize the fact that there is a moderate interest
among men and add something to romantic movies that appeals to men,"
he said. "There are a lot of men who go to these romantic movies
and enjoy them. I wouldn't write off the male audience just because
it is a romantic film. I would suggest marketing to the men in the
audience."
The
study also showed that men and women used stereotypes when it came
to guessing which scene their date would choose to play in the film.
The most commonly selected scene was the romantic scene, which,
according to Harris, wasn't unexpected because romance was the one
thing that all the movies had in common.
However,
most women selected a romantic scene for themselves and their date,
but they guessed that their date would pick a sex scene, Harris
said. While many men did select a sex scene, the number was not
nearly as high as what the women had predicted it would be. Harris
said these results are because both men and women were using stereotypes
to guess what their date would choose.
"Men
fell back on the stereotype that women love romance, and women did
the same thing by thinking that men would be more interested in
a sex scene," he said. "The biggest difference was that
the men were right with the stereotype they used and the women weren't."
Harris'
study was a follow-up to earlier research he did involving the viewing
of violent films on dates, examining a genre that was considered
to be mostly guy films. Harris said that's why he wanted to look
at romantic films, which were considered to be mostly women's films.
He found that the stereotypes with violent and romantic films are
both followed and disregarded when it comes to selecting which movie
to see on a date.
"We
found that when seeing the film on a date, the decision about which
kind of movie to attend is mostly made together as a couple and
can go either way, but only if one party makes the decision, then
they stay true to those stereotypes, with guys choosing to go to
a violent film and women choosing a romantic film," Harris
said.
A
K-State faculty member since 1974, Harris is part of the university's
cognitive and human factors psychology program. His research areas
include autobiographical memory for media experiences, comprehension
and memory for figurative language, lexical processing, and studies
of language processing in languages other than English and in bilinguals.
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