Listen up: Superhero posters may be telling you to help others

WASHINGTON: Looking at posters of superheroes can trigger prosocial behaviours in people, encouraging them to lend a helping hand to others, a study has found.
Superhero movies set inspirational moral examples for many people, but whether they encourage people to help a stranger or donate money is not known.
“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,” said Jeffrey D Green of the Virginia Commonwealth University in the US.
The researchers exposed 245 individuals to common household pictures with either subtle superhero images — such as Spiderman and Superman — or neutral images.
Participants primed with superhero images reported greater intentions to engage in prosocial behaviours. The perception of meaning in life was not directly influenced by the superhero prime, but indirectly through helping intentions: the superhero prime increased helping intentions, which, in turn, increased felt meaning in life.
Given that the experiment relied on self-reported helping intentions, a second experiment was performed to examine actual helping behaviour.
A further 123 individuals were subtlety primed with a superhero image (Superman poster on the wall) versus a neutral image (picture of a bicycle), then invited to help with a tedious experimental task for no extra credit.
Those primed with the Superman poster were significantly more likely to help than those primed with a bicycle.