Introduction - Salisbury University



The Messages Across the Harry Potter Movies Over Time, Including Behaviors That Relate to Morality and Interpersonal Relationships

Jessica Rogers

Lance C. Garmon, PhD. (Advisor)

Salisbury University

Introduction

The youth of today seem to spend more and more time watching movies, which some argue may impact their morality and behavior (Heintz-Knowles, 2001). All the Harry Potter movies have been well received over the years in terms of popularity. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) reported that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone made $968,657,891, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets made $866,300,000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban made $789,458,727, and the last movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made $892,194,397 in the Worldwide Box Office (IMDd, 2007).

The Harry Potter series are in chronological and sequential order from one movie to the next. At the start of the series Harry Potter is eleven years old and throughout he ages one year in each consecutive movie. So in the fourth movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry is fourteen, three years older than when he was in the first movie and has moved from early to middle adolescence.

Adolescents are in a time of their life where they are trying to figure out who they are and what they will become, trying on different roles to see which one suits them the best (Frank & McBee, 2003). It could be argued that when watching movie characters of the same age, this may influence how adolescents pick what roles to adopt. The current study involves all four Harry Potter movies and coding them for different behaviors that may have occurred in each movie, such as negative relationships and more helpful behavior and/or more threats.

A report written by Amanda Cain (2005) talks about the development of morality while reading, and she uses the Harry Potter series as an example. Cain reports that in the character of Harry Potter J.K. Rowling as depicting a hero and offering a model for considerate and moral behavior for children. She goes on to say that the different adventures hone empathetic and practical capabilities for the characters as well as the readers.

To our knowledge there has been no pertinent research in the psychology field on the Harry Potter movies so far. The movies are a little different from the books but they still have the same characters and adventures so the reasoning can be applicable to the four movies. For example the book’s many pages of text are now used for shots of trading cards and movie stars changing J.K. Rowling’s writing style (Cain, 2005).

Hypothesis 1- As the main characters become older more mature themes become more evident.

A) more romantic relationships will be portrayed

B) more violence and negative behavior will become apparent

Hypothesis 2- As the main characters become older they will be more helpful.

A) more helpful behavior will become apparent

B) more kind behavior will become apparent

Method

Stimuli

All four released Harry Potter movies between the years 2001 and 2005 were analyze throughout the course of this study; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Procedure

For each movie a coding packet was filled out, sighting if specific events occurred such as driving, fighting, or helpful behavior. Each time a behavior occurred a tally was recorded utilized two coding forms, the Media Moral Messages (MMM: Glover 2005)

and the Media Experience Scale (MES: Garmon 2006).

MMM Variables

| | |

|AOF |Awareness of others’ feelings; concern for others; sympathetic listening |

| |Character in program says or does something that demonstrates he/she is aware of the perspective or point of view of |

| |another character AND/OR character in program expresses concern for another(s well-being or appears to listen in a |

| |sympathetic manner to what another is saying |

| | |

|AP |Apology |

| |Character in program apologies for something |

| | |

|F |Forgiveness |

| |Expression/gesture of forgiveness of another; character in program “forgives” another |

| | |

|NUFA |Nurturing; helpful behavior friendly affection or romantic love |

| |Character demonstrates care, concern, warmth for or some sort of helpful behavior to another character AND/OR |

| |expression/gesture of affection or romantic love between characters |

| | |

|K |Kind; positive comment |

| |Character says something kind or makes a positive comment (e.g., praise) to another |

| | |

|HA |Healthy expression of anger |

| |Character expresses anger, but the anger is appropriate for the situation |

| | |

|A |Anger |

| |Character expresses anger, but the anger is NOT appropriate for the situation |

| | |

|DEGO |Deception to protect other or self; blaming; disregard of other |

| |Character lies or tries to deceive someone in order to protect him/herself or another person; character blames someone else for |

| |something he/she did AND/OR character says or does something that shows a lack of regard for the perspective of another |

| |character; character does something that shows he/she is concerned primarily about him/herself and needs |

| | |

|DISS |Dissing |

|PRE |negative interaction |

| |Character says or does something that demonstrates a negative opinion about someone else – with or without that person knowing; |

| |character “puts down” someone else; character makes sarcastic or snide remark to or about someone else AND/OR character makes a |

| |comment or does something that shows prejudice, discrimination, scapegoating, or stereotyping |

| | |

|TH |Threats |

| |Character says or does something that demonstrates the intent to inflict harm, evil, injury, damage |

MES Variables

| | |

|MESrelPARapp |Any on-screen physical appearance of the parent(s) of an adolescent(s) exists in this |

| |segment of the media event. |

| | |

|MESrelFRIapp |Any on-screen physical appearance of the friend(s) of an adolescent(s) exists in this segment of the media |

| |event. |

|MESrelROMOPapp |Any on-screen physical appearance of the romantic partner(s) of an adolescent(s) exists in this segment of the|

| |media event. |

| | |

|MESrelTCHapp |Any on-screen physical appearance of the academic teacher(s) of an adolescent(s) exists in this segment of the|

| |media event. |

|MESrelADLTapp |Any on-screen physical appearance of any other non-relative adult(s) in a relationship with an adolescent(s) |

| |exists in this segment of the media event. |

Results and Discussion

No clear pattern involving either MMM positive or negative behaviors emerged across all four movies when they were combined together (See Table 1, Table 2, and Graph 1). One positive variable, NUFA behaviors, become more common across all four movies and one negative variable, TH behaviors, become less common across all four movies. The third movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, had the most number of positive behaviors and the least amount of negative behaviors while the second movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, had the least amount of positive behavior and tied for the most negative behavior.

It was found that more mature themes did occur as the movies progressed (See Table 3 and Graph 2). Two instances of Romantic Partners (ROMP) occurred only in the fourth movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but this was by supporting characters aged seventeen and sixteen, not by the main characters who were only fourteen. This may indicate that they were not yet mature enough to have a romantic partner.

A Pearson Correlation was run comparing all variables to the developmental sequence of the movies. While no relationships were significant, some relations are worth noting. Two MMM variables approached significance, NUFA (r = .95, p = .053) and TH (r = - .95, p = .052). The occurrence of parents, friends, teachers, and adults stayed mostly consistent throughout the movies with FRI (r = .88, p = .122) and PAR (r = - .72, p = .284) being the closest to a significant level.

Driving only occurred in one movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where Ron and his brothers drive a flying car. Ron drove badly as the result of distractions. It could be argued that the mythical brooms substitute for the cars in the world of Harry Potter but these behaviors were not analyzed.

Future research should allow for additional raters when obtaining scores for each movie, which will not only support the validity of the findings but will also allow for additional statistical analyses.

Also this research can be taken farther by trying to relate the movies with actual adolescent behavior. An explanation of why these relationships could be expected is proposed by social learning theory which ascribes behavior changes mostly to modeling, a process in which participants watch others carry out desirable behaviors and then imitating it, such as between violent video games and juvenile delinquency (McDonald, Rogers, Panuska, Kerns, Acocella, 2007).

References

Cain, A. (2005). Books and becoming good: demonstrating Aristotle’s theory of moral development in the act of reading. Journal of Moral Education, 34, 171-183. Retreived April 20, 2007 from PsychINFO

Frank, A. J., & McBee M.T. (2003). The use of Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone to discuss identity development with gifted adolescence. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 15, 33-38. Retrieved April 20, 2007 from PsychINFO

Garmon, L.C. (2006). Media Event Scale: MES. Unpublished document available from the author.

Glover, R.J., (2005,). SpongeBob and Fairly OddParents: moral messages in children’s television programming. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Moral Education, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Heintz-Knowles, K.E. (2001). Balancing acts: Work-family issues on prime-time TV. In J. Bryant & J.A. Bryant (Eds.), Television and the American family (2nd ed.) (pp. 177-206). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc

Internet Movie Database. Retrieved April 25, 2007, from

McDonald H.., Rogers J., Panuska H., Kerns J., Acocella, C. (2006) The relationship between video games and juvenile delinquency. Salisbury, MD

|Table 1: Positive MMM Variables |

| |Harry Potter: |Harry Potter: |Harry Potter: The |Harry Potter: |

| |Sorcerer’s Stone |Chamber of Secrets |Prisoner of Azkaban |Goblet of Fire |

|AOF |17 |12 |17 |15 |

|AP |6 |2 |4 |2 |

|F |0 |0 |0 |0 |

|NUFA |10 |11 |17 |22 |

|K |11 |4 |7 |4 |

|HA |3 |5 |4 |2 |

|Combined |47 |34 |49 |45 |

|Table 2: Negative MMM Variables |

| |Harry Potter: |Harry Potter: Chamber |Harry Potter: |Harry Potter: Goblet of|

| |Sorcerer’s Stone |of Secrets |Prisoner of Azkaban |Fire |

|A |8 |8 |5 |10 |

|DEGO |1 |7 |2 |1 |

|DISSPRE |14 |11 |5 |13 |

|TH |17 |14 |10 |10 |

|Combined |40 |40 |22 |34 |

|Table 3: MES Relationship Variables |

| |Harry Potter: Sorcerer’s|Harry Potter: Chamber of|Harry Potter: Prisoner |Harry Potter: Goblet of |

| |Stone |Secrets |of Azkaban |Fire |

|MESrelPARapp |9 |6 |2 |5 |

|MESrelFRIapp |33 |39 |37 |46 |

|MESrelROMPapp |0 |0 |0 |2 |

|MESrelTCHapp |35 |30 |30 |42 |

|MESrelADLTapp |14 |8 |6 |18 |

Graph 1

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Graph 2

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