Sometimes the best cure for a dismal mood can be a simple rom-com marathon. But instead of reaching for that feel good flick, a tragic tear-jerker may end up putting you in better spirits. At least that's what a recent study from Ohio State University is suggesting.

After rigorous testing that had 361 college students sobbing to an abridged 33-minute version of the doleful romantic war drama Atonement, researchers found that the film boosted happiness amongst viewers by allowing them to think about and appreciate their own personal relationships in contrast with the tragedy onscreen.

"Sadness can be enjoyable," says Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, the lead author of the study and associate professor of communication at Ohio State University. "It can be sort of a gateway to feeling more positive, to feeling better, and tragedy is just a great way to do that. I mean, entertainment altogether is designed to play on our emotions and the different genres have different effects to them."

Knobloch-Westerwick adds that the sadness of the film actually leaves viewers reflecting on the positive aspects within their own lives, consequently increasing their levels of happiness and appreciation.

"Those comments revealed that a lot of people were really moved," says Knobloch-Westerwick, who assessed participants with open-ended questions before and after viewing the film, and saw a strong increase in the amount of participants who reflected on the direction of their lives and questioned their current relationships. "This movie demonstrated how important it is that you're spending as much time as possible with the people you love."

And as for the quick fix of a comedy or blockbuster action film, Knobloch-Westerwick thinks "(they) can distract you from sources of a negative mood from your life, but tragedy does something different. It does channel our attention to what is good with our life."

According to the study, which was published in the most recent online edition of the journal Communication Research, the more often a participant thinks about and mentions their loved ones, the more their sense of happiness would increase.

As one of the first studies to assess the psychological impact of tragic films, the findings reveal key aspects of human psychology that allow experts to better understand human emotion and the media's effects on moviegoers' psyches.

"There is a lot of overlap between communication and psychology, so I do approach entertainment or communication overall with psychological methods and theories. So there is this overlap, if you will," says Knobloch-Westerwick, who was assisted in the study by graduate student Yuan Gong and Ohio State undergraduates Holly Hagner and Laura Kerkeybian. "I think entertainment is best explained if you think about the psychological processes that are involved."

National Post

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