A study was conducted with 81 college students in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States to determine if viewing a documentary film would affect their environmental perceptions and behaviors. This study differed from previous research investigating the effect of viewing films in that it employed a randomized control group design and included behavioral outcome measures rather than self-report data.
Two groups of students participated in this study. One group viewed a documentary film about dolphins emphasizing the natural environment. The other group viewed a documentary film about the Golden Gate Bridge focusing on the built environment. The students were randomly assigned to their groups. Immediately after viewing their assigned film, each participant completed a Flexitwins computer game assessing environmental identification. The Flexitwins game uses the principles of the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) to measure the degree to which people associate “self” with “natural” or “built” environments. Finally, subjects took part in a charitable donation activity in which they could contribute to either of two causes: helping dolphins or supporting bridge rejuvenation.
Results indicated a statistically significant difference between the two film viewing groups on their identification with the built or natural environment. Subjects who had viewed the video about dolphins displayed a greater tendency to associate their self-concept with the natural environment than did the group that had watched the film about the Golden Gate Bridge. On the charitable contribution task, there was a general tendency for subjects to donate money to the dolphin cause rather than to the bridge fund regardless of which video they had viewed. However, the difference between the proportion of participants in each group that gave to the dolphin cause was significant suggesting that the environmental video did have a significant impact on the propensity to give to an environmental cause.
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