Visual excitement: analyzing the effects of three Norwegian tourism films on emotions and behavioral intentions

ABSTRACT

Commercial films are important for deciding where to travel. Nonetheless, surprisingly little is known scientifically about which emotions tourist commercials trigger while watching them and how similarly or differently online vs. post hoc self-reported emotions affect travel intentions. In an experimental study, 142 tourists were randomly allocated into one of three groups. The first group was exposed to a tourist commercial film, the second group watched a different tourist commercial film and the third group saw a short amateur ski film. A subsample was also shown a popular comedy film. Online emotions were captured using FaceReader software that analyzed facial expressions. Self-reported emotions were measured with a questionnaire distributed immediately after each film. Results showed that tourist films elicited hardly any facial expressions at all, and that there was no correlation between those elicited and the same emotions measured with the post-film questionnaire. In contrast, the comedy film elicited higher levels of facial expressions and many of those emotions correlated significantly with those reported in the questionnaire afterwards. Finally, online more than self-reported emotions predicted future intentions to visit.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism
• film
• emotion
• facial expressions
• intention

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Jón Karl Stefánsson and Kenneth Fagermo for the laborious work it has been to collect these data.

Notes on contributors

Audun Hetland is a PhD student in psychology at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway. He holds a MA in psychology from UiT. His research interests are within the fields of motivation and positive emotion.

Joar Vittersø is a professor of psychology at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway. He holds a MS in social anthropology, a MS and a Ph.D. in social psychology, all from the University of Oslo. Author of more than 70 scientific journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Vittersø primarily conducts research on human well-being, positive emotions and intrinsic motivation. He is a Board member of the International Positive Psychology Association, the Country representative for Norway in the European Network for Positive Psychology.

Kenneth Fagermo is a PhD student in psychology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. He holds a Cand.psychol. degree from UiT. His research interests are primarily within psychotherapy and psychological well-being.

Morten øvervoll is a psychologist at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. He conducts research on visual perception and attention, visual object recognition, and cognition-emotion interactions.

Tove I. Dahl is a professor of psychology and an educational psychologist at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Through the Northern InSights project that funded this project, her most recent work has investigated psychological theories and concepts relevant for experiences of being in nature, traveling and the building of bridges among people and cultures. Her particular focus has been on where cognition and emotion meet, particularly in relation to the concept of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This article is written as part of the research project Northern InSights (http://www.opplevelserinord.no/), which is partly financed by The Norwegian Research Council, [grant number 195306/140].