Department of Information Systems and Analytics, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053.
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Jul 16;121(29):e2307726121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2307726121. Epub 2024 Jul 8.
Watching movies is among the most popular entertainment and cultural activities. How do viewers react when a movie sequel increases racial minority actors in the main cast ("minority increase")? On the one hand, such sequels may receive better evaluations if viewers appreciate racially inclusive casting for its novel elements (the value-in-diversity perspective) and moral appeal (the fairness perspective on diversity). On the other hand, discrimination research suggests that if viewers harbor biases against racial minorities, sequels with minority increase may receive worse evaluations. To examine these competing possibilities, we analyze a unique panel dataset of movie series released from 1998 to 2021 and conduct text analysis of 312,457 reviews of these movies. Consistent with discrimination research, we find that movies with minority increase receive lower ratings and more toxic reviews. Importantly, these effects weaken after the advent of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, especially when the movement's intensity is high. These results are reliable across various robustness checks (e.g., propensity score matching, random implementation test). We conceptually replicate the bias mitigation effect of BLM in a preregistered experiment: Heightening the salience of BLM increases White individuals' acceptance of racial minority increase in a movie sequel. This research demonstrates the power of social movements in fostering diversity, equality, and inclusion.
观影是最受欢迎的娱乐和文化活动之一。当一部电影续集增加了主要演员中的少数族裔演员（“少数族裔增加”）时，观众会作何反应？一方面，如果观众欣赏多样性包容的选角具有新颖元素（多样性的价值视角）和道德吸引力（多样性的公平视角），那么此类续集可能会获得更好的评价。另一方面，歧视研究表明，如果观众对少数族裔抱有偏见，那么少数族裔增加的续集可能会受到更差的评价。为了检验这些相互竞争的可能性，我们分析了一个从 1998 年到 2021 年发布的电影系列的独特面板数据集，并对这些电影的 312,457 条评论进行了文本分析。与歧视研究一致，我们发现增加少数族裔演员的电影获得的评分较低，评论也较负面。重要的是，这种影响在“黑人的命也是命”（BLM）运动出现后减弱，尤其是当该运动的强度较高时。这些结果在各种稳健性检验（例如，倾向得分匹配、随机实施测试）中都是可靠的。我们在预先注册的实验中概念性地复制了 BLM 的偏见缓解效应：提高 BLM 的凸显度会增加白人对电影续集中少数族裔增加的接受度。这项研究展示了社会运动在促进多样性、平等和包容方面的力量。
