Ratings for emotion film clips

Abstract

Film clips are widely utilized to elicit emotion in a variety of research studies. Normative ratings for scenes selected for these purposes support that selected clips correspond to the intended target emotion, but studies reporting normative ratings are limited. Using an ethnically diverse sample of college undergraduates, selected clips were rated for intensity, discreteness, valence, and arousal. Variables hypothesized to affect the perception of stimuli (i.e., gender, race-ethnicity, and familiarity) were also examined. Analyses generally indicated that males reacted strongly to positively valenced film clips, while females reacted more strongly to negatively valenced film clips. Caucasian participants tended to react more strongly to film clips, and there was some variation by race-ethnicity across target emotions. Finally, familiarity with films tended to produce higher ratings for positively valenced film clips and lower ratings for negatively valenced film clips. Findings provide normative ratings for a useful set of film clips for the study of emotion, and underscore factors to be considered in research that utilizes scenes from film for emotion elicitation.

A film set for the elicitation of emotion in research: A comprehensive catalog derived from four decades of investigation

“…There are relatively few investigations examining the impact of age on responses to emotional film stimuli, but some data (e.g., Hazer et al, 2015;Jenkins & Andrewes, 2012) have accumulated to suggest that important differences can emerge. Indeed, gender, culture, age, and a variety of other factors should be considered when selecting clips for use with varying participant populations (see Alghowinem et al, 2014;Fernández, Pascual, Soler, & Fernández-Abascal, 2011;Gabert-Quillen et al, 2015;Liang, Hsieh, Weng, & Sun, 2013). Moreover, utilization of community, rather than college, samples through crowd-sourced venues such as Amazon Mechanical Turk might reveal different elicitation responses or altered patterns of co-elicitation, given the relative heterogeneity (Peterson, 2001) and distinctive motivations for study participation (Paolacci & Chandler, 2014) that exist in community populations.…”

“…Since that time several other sets have been put forth, most emphasizing the elicitation of discrete emotional states (e.g., Gabert-Quillen et al, 2015;Hewig et al, 2005;Rottenberg et al, 2007;Schaefer et al, 2010), others emphasizing broader dimensions of affective experience (e.g., Carvalho, Leite, GaldoÁlvarez, & Gonçalves, 2012;Samson et al, 2016) and the influence of key demographic factors in the effectiveness of the stimuli (e.g., age; Hazer et al, 2015;Jenkins & Andrewes, 2012). The advantages of each film set are clear.…”

Positive affective priming decreases the middle late positive potential response to negative images

“…As with previous work, we used validated video clips to induce an implicit emotion or motivation state for affective priming (Gabert-Quillen, Bartolini, Abravanel, & Sanislow, 2015;Gross & Levenson, 1995). Video induction of implicit emotion was used in the current study to induce a "fear," "happy," or neutral emotion.…”

Understanding mixed emotions: paradigms and measures

“…Film clips are a convenient method for standardized emotion induction and can elicit intense emotions in viewers [20, 21]. Several empirically validated emotion film libraries have been created for inducing specific target emotions [e.g., 22, 23, 24, 25]. However, few libraries provide data on the multiplicity of emotions elicited by a film stimulus [26] and none had been specifically aimed at eliciting mixed emotions.…”