As part of the National Science Foundation workshop: Screening “Run Lola Run” and writing/photography exercises increased optional thinking ability by 75% and 50% of participants changed negative attitudes toward the other group – compared to a control group that watched “Top Gun”
In recent years, Prof. Nitzan Ben Shaul of the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University has been trying to get off the screen – and change reality with the help of a key insight he learned from feature films: films that present alternative narratives, such as “Revolving Doors” and “Rashomon,” encourage the viewer to adopt alternative perspectives on the same event – and thus develop empathy for the different characters. Prof. Ben Shaul even published a book on the subject, which was originally published in English, and in 2021 was translated into Hebrew and published by Am Oved under the title: ‘Cinema of Choice: Optional Thinking and Narrative Films.’
Now, with the help of a grant from the National Science Foundation, he is testing his theory in the field – and trying to change negative stereotypes among teenagers through film workshops to create divergent narratives.
“This research is in its third year,” says Prof. Ben Shaul, “and its goal is to prove the importance of optional thinking, and then to integrate it into the curriculum of the education system. We need to understand that optional thinking is a cognitive ability, and like any ability – it can and should be cultivated. It is our ability to think about alternatives, about different and contradictory sources for the outcome of a particular phenomenon. Its opposite is mental closure. Of course, at some point we all have to decide and close in order to acquire knowledge – after all, it is always possible to think of more and more options. Even in the movie ‘The Matrix’, the hero ultimately decides what reality is. God forbid, we encourage anyone to begin an endless process of weighing alternatives, but we would do well not to lock onto anything as the absolute truth. The belief that something is the absolute truth – and therefore must not be challenged – has disastrous consequences, and I always give my students the example of the Yom Kippur War.”
Lecture by Prof. Nitzan Ben Shaul as part of the National Science Foundation's research workshop on optional thinking, closed-mindedness, and changing stereotypes
To test their hypothesis, Prof. Ben-Shaul and his team are conducting film workshops for Jewish and Arab high school students majoring in film. They screen the film “Run Lola Run” for some groups and conduct a workshop to strengthen optional thinking following the viewing, which includes writing scripts and shooting short films – and for the control group, they screen the linear feature film “Top Gun”, and give them assignments that direct them to similar exemplary thinking of “good” and “bad”. Questionnaires dealing with negative stereotypes about the other group (Jews about Arabs and Arabs about Jews) that were distributed in the second year of the study demonstrated that 75% of the participants in the optional thinking workshop strengthened this cognitive ability – and 50% of them changed their negative opinion about the other group.
“People think that it is impossible to change stereotypes, but this is also a mental block – of course it is possible, and we have also proven it statistically,” says Prof. Ben Shaul. “When a person with the ability to think optionally encounters a stereotype, he will immediately start thinking about different options: he will see the stereotype from both his own perspective and the perspective of the person being labeled, and will understand that the same thing can be presented from many angles. In Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’, we are presented with four witnesses who tell us about an incident of rape and murder, and each of the four provides an answer to all the legal aspects, but it is clear that some are lying or simply do not know what actually happened. The viewer tries to understand what really happened, but he understands that he will never have the opportunity to know the ‘truth’, but only partial truths. And a person who knows that he only knows partial truths tends to be more empathetic towards alternative options, other opinions and beliefs.”
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