Watching Marvel Movies Can Help You Overcome Your Fear

That good bit of this is that it will only take you 7 seconds!

At a time when all eyes are set on the release of movie Avengers: Endgame to unveil the epic conclusion of Avengers, there a team of Israeli researchers is trying to take the craving for the superheroes as a way to wipe out the fear from many people.

According to a new research, some Marvel movies can be used to remove the fear of spiders (arachnophobia) as well as the fear of ants (myrmecophobia). This can be done by viewing a seven-second scene from the movie Spider-Man 2 or the popular movie Ant-Man.

 

This sounds a good option especially when many are waiting for Spider-Man: Far from Home, which may have the same effect. This research study was published on 23rd of April in Frontiers in Psychiatry. In this research, 424 participants watched segments belonging to the Sony Pictures movie Spider-Man 2, the Marvel movie Ant-Man, and a natural scene or a Marvel opening credits scene were used. The responses of the participants were measured both before the viewing of the scenes and after viewing through an online quiz. This quiz was intended to assess the socio-demographic variables, such as the familiarity with both the movies and the phobic symptoms in the respondents.

It was found that the participants’ phobia symptom scores were decreased after viewing the scenes from the movies with respect to the pre-viewing by 20%. Almost similar results were recorded with the patients who were exposed to the Marvel movie clip of Ant-Man to reduce the effect of phobia.

 

The theory of the study is known as exposure therapy and is used by psychiatrists quite a lot to treat specific phobias. In this therapy patients are shown patient neutral, non-harmful images of the insects, reptiles or any other things they are afraid of. Exposing the patients to their fear that leads to no harmful consequence offers great help in easing the symptoms of the phobia.

The selection of the Marvel films was based on the huge fan base and the fun element that may reduce some of the stigmas that are associated with the exposure therapy of these phobias.

 

The research team is now looking positively to improve the effects on the participants with their Marvel-based therapy option and help the patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Only time will tell how Marvel movies will help the more patients later on.