One more reason to book cinema tickets to the latest blockbuster. Seeing images of superheroes will make you more likely to help people in real life! A new study has found that looking at even subtle superhero imagery can make people feel inspired to engage in pro-social activities.
‘Given that superheroes are an increasingly large and accessible part of our cultures, even if merely symbolically, we were interested in exploring their role in inspiring virtuous and meaningful lives,’ says Dr Jeffrey Green of the Virginia Commonwealth University.
Pictures of Superman and Spiderman were shown to half of the participants, while the others looked at common household images such as bikes, for the first part of the study, from Virginia Commonwealth University.
The second part saw them invited to help with a tedious experiment, and revealed that those who’d seen a Superman poster beforehand were much more likely to volunteer.
