Why Movies Make You Root for the Psychopath

If someone asked you to name your favorite movie character of all time, who would you choose? You might offer up an indisputably heroic figure along the lines of Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games) or Luke Skywalker (Star Wars). You probably would not choose Voldemort from Harry Potter or Annie Wilkes from Misery.

Yet, recent research shows that there’s something about the structure of stories that allows us to let our guard down and relate to less than honorable characters. In the imaginary world of fictional narratives, we can dip a toe in morally ambiguous waters and identify with moral degenerates that we would never associate with in real life.

In fact, this may explain the astronomical success of TV shows like Succession, which won big at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards. We can’t help but love these awful people with few redeeming qualities. We can even root for a psychopath.

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Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film “Psycho” is arguably one of the best psychological thrillers of our time. The director has complete control over the viewer.

Early on, we cheer on Marion (played by Janet Leigh) who is fleeing the law after stealing $40,000 from her employer. Then, while taking a shower at the Bates Hotel, Marion meets her grisly end in what might be one of the most frightening murder scenes in film.

However, Hitchcock’s greatest accomplishment may be what happens next.

After Marion’s demise, the film shifts the viewer from empathizing with Marion to empathizing with her killer, Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins).

As the police are closing in, Norman Bates tries to hide Marion’s body in her car, which he pushes into a swamp. The viewer watches breathlessly as the car slowly sinks deeper and deeper. But then for an agonizing moment, it suddenly stops sinking.

The car is still in full view, and the audience feels panic that Bates will be caught by the police because he won’t successfully get rid of the body. Then, at the last moment, the car starts sinking again and disappears. The viewer breathes a sigh of relief. Hitchcock has made us an accomplice to the killer.

When we become immersed in a movie, we feel less concerned about our own interests and, instead, become invested in the various twists and turns of the story. Stories force us to put ourselves in the minds of their characters, even loathsome ones, and, as a result, we find ourselves taking on their goals and aspirations.

Scene from "Bang! You're Dead" by Alfred Hitchcock (1961)

Source: Anna-Lisa Cohen

In my own research, my colleagues and I had research participants watch a compelling short Alfred Hitchcock program, Bang! You’re Dead, and we gave them a simple goal. They had to keep track of every time they heard a story character say the word “gun.”

At the beginning of the film, participants dutifully carried out their goal. But as the suspense built and they became invested in the suspenseful story plot (parents frantically searching for their son who has a loaded gun), they forgot all about keeping track of their simple task. Rather, their own immediate goals were replaced by the goals of the protagonist (to prevent a murder).

Why does this happen?

From the moment we enter the world, our life is infused with stories. Caregivers read us books or tell us their own stories. Archaeologists recently discovered cave art depicting a narrative scene which, according to a 2019 study published in Nature, ranks as the earliest story ever told at 44,000 years old. You could say that humans are hard-wired to lose themselves in stories.

Researcher Richard Gerrig calls this common experience of becoming immersed in stories narrative transportation because it feels like we have been “transported” into the alternate world of a narrative. When transported, we lose track of reality in a physiological sense. We are absent. Gone. If someone called our name, we would fail to hear it.

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Not only in the realm of movies but in books as well, stories allow us to feel emotional connections to story characters. We begin to feel empathy for them.

In a 2013 study, Maja Djikic and her University of Toronto colleagues showed that research participants who were frequent readers of fiction had higher scores on measures of empathy. It seems the more we are exposed to fictional worlds, the more we get a chance to exercise that empathy muscle for story characters who we might not encounter in real life.

Fiction is unique in the sense that it can lower our barriers. We float along with the narrative simulating the ideas and thinking styles of someone else. Stories provide a unique vehicle through which we can experience other worlds. In these alternate worlds, we flexibly take on novel ideas and perspectives that we might not be open to in everyday life.

Research by Nick Buttrick and colleagues shows that reading literary fiction in childhood is associated with a more complex worldview. Reading stories with complex plots and a wide range of characters widens our scope and makes us more diverse thinkers.

The authors propose that literary fiction alters our view of the world through the presentation of difference. When narratives expose us to diverse minds, contexts, beliefs, and situations, then over time we acquire an understanding that our social world is complex.

Whether depicted in movies, TV, or literary fiction, stories force us to stretch our imaginative powers without even realizing that we are stretching. And research shows that this makes us more comfortable with competing narratives. We are more open to differences.

So, the next time you sit down to enjoy a new episode of the wildly popular western-drama Yellowstone, perhaps you won’t judge yourself for silently rooting for Beth Dutton who wants to kill her brother. It’s fiction.