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Ratings for emotion film clips

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Abstract

Film clips are widely utilized to elicit emotion in a variety of research studies. Normative ratings for scenes selected for these purposes support the idea that selected clips correspond to the intended target emotion, but studies reporting normative ratings are limited. Using an ethnically diverse sample of college undergraduates, selected clips were rated for intensity, discreteness, valence, and arousal. Variables hypothesized to affect the perception of stimuli (i.e., gender, race–ethnicity, and familiarity) were also examined. Our analyses generally indicated that males reacted strongly to positively valenced film clips, whereas females reacted more strongly to negatively valenced film clips. Caucasian participants tended to react more strongly to the film clips, and we found some variation by race–ethnicity across target emotions. Finally, familiarity with the films tended to produce higher ratings for positively valenced film clips, and lower ratings for negatively valenced film clips. These findings provide normative ratings for a useful set of film clips for the study of emotion, and they underscore factors to be considered in research that utilizes scenes from film for emotion elicitation.

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Notes

  1. In our study, film clips depicting surprise were negative; we note that surprise has been depicted positively and negatively in prior work (e.g., Vrticka, Lordier, Bediou, & Sander, 2013).

  2. There was only a single case of one participant viewing the clips alone.

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Author note

Portions of this work were conducted as part of a senior honors thesis by E.E.B., now at Widener University. B.T.A. is at Yale University. National Institutes of Health Grant No. MH073708 and grants from Wesleyan University supported this study. The authors thank Anna Brugioni and Ema Tanovic for their assistance with the study, and Karen J. Mitchell for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Judd Hall 207 High Street, Middletown, CT, 06459, USA

    Crystal A. Gabert-Quillen, Ellen E. Bartolini, Benjamin T. Abravanel & Charles A. Sanislow

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  1. Crystal A. Gabert-Quillen
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  2. Ellen E. Bartolini
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  3. Benjamin T. Abravanel
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  4. Charles A. Sanislow
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Charles A. Sanislow.

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 7 Information on film clips and target emotions
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Appendix 2

Table 8 Order of film clips for each of the three sequences for the two response sets
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Gabert-Quillen, C.A., Bartolini, E.E., Abravanel, B.T. et al. Ratings for emotion film clips. Behav Res 47, 773–787 (2015). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-014-0500-0

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