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Could Mad Men make you a better friend? High quality dramas improve our emotional intelligence, study claims

Scientists say TV dramas exercise our minds because, to understand the plot, ‘the audience must keep track of the mental states and emotions
Study participants were given a Theory of Mind test after watching either a documentary or a drama - those who watched drama performed better

Published: 09:25 EST, 2 October 2015 | Updated: 18:20 EST, 2 October 2015

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Here’s something for anyone who feels guilty about binge-watching box sets: watching TV dramas can boost your emotional intelligence.

Researchers found that watching ‘high quality’ fictional shows like Mad Men or The West Wing can improve our ability to read others’ emotions.

TV dramas exercise our minds in this way because, to understand the plot, ‘the audience must keep track of the mental states, emotions, and relationships of the characters contained therein’, the researchers from the University of Oklahoma said.

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Researchers found that watching ‘high quality’ fictional shows like Mad Men or The West Wing can improve our ability to read others’ emotions. Don Draper is pictured above on the left with his secretary and wife Megan Draper, played by Jessica Pare

For their study, the researchers recruited 100 men and women.

Half the group watched either Mad Men - a fictional series about the advertising industry in 1960s America – or The West Wing – a fictional series about U.S. politics.

The researchers chose these because both had been nominated or won Emmy awards, in ‘recognition of the quality and complexity of their narratives’.

The other half of the group watched either a Discovery Channel documentary on sharks or a Science Channel documentary on the sun.

The participants were then given a Theory of Mind test, which measures a person’s awareness of, and ability to interpret, the mental states and emotions of others.

This involved looking at images of eyes and matching them with the correct emotion the person was experiencing, such as jealousy or panic.

For the study participants watched either Mad Men or The West Wing (pictured). Researchers chose these because both had been nominated or won Emmy awards, in ‘recognition of the quality of their narratives’

NETFLIX REVEALS THE EPISODE YOU GOT HOOKED ON POPULAR BOX SETS

For some, it's an addiction, and for others, an occasional guilty pleasure.

Now, a study from Netflix has been able to reveal the exact episode in popular TV shows that hooked viewers.

For instance, it only took two episodes of 'Breaking Bad' for most viewers to want to keep watching the drama.

'How I Met Your Mother', however, took off far more slowly, with most Netflix viewers only becoming addicted after the eighth episode.

As part of the study, Netflix studied its global streaming data across the inaugural seasons of 25 popular shows - both Netflix original series and shows that premiered on other networks.

THE EPISODES THAT GOT YOU HOOKED:

'Arrow' - Episode 8

'Bates Motel' - Episode 2

'Better Call Saul' - Episode 4

'Bloodline' - Episode 4

'BoJack Horseman' - Episode 5

'Breaking Bad' - Episode 2

'Dexter' - Episode 3

'Gossip Girl' - Episode 3

'Grace & Frankie' - Episode 4

'House of Cards' - Episode 3

'How I Met Your Mother' - Episode 8

'Mad Men' - Episode 6

'Marco Polo' - Episode 3

'Marvel's Daredevil' - Episode 5

'Once Upon A Time' - Episode 6

'Orange is the New Black' - Episode 3

'Pretty Little Liars' - Episode 4

'Scandal' - Episode 2

'Sense8' - Episode 3

'Sons of Anarchy' - Episode 2

'Suits' - Episode 2

'The Blacklist' - Episode 6

'The Killing' - Episode 2

'The Walking Dead' - Episode 2

'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' - Episode 4

Those who watched the dramas ‘performed significantly better’ than those who had watched the documentaries, the researchers found.

‘Fictional narratives demand that the audience understand the feelings and intentions of the characters,’ the researchers wrote in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.

‘Without knowing what the people in a story are thinking, it is difficult, if not impossible, to follow the plot.

‘Although documentary-style TV may require that the audience follow the narrator’s train of thought and reasoning, these tend to be spelled out when the purpose of the presentation is to inform the audience.

‘In fiction, on the other hand, part of the pleasure of viewing may be derived from guessing and second-guessing the purposes of the protagonists.’

A second experiment was then carried out with a further sample of participants, but this time they watched either a drama, a documentary or no TV at all (the control group) before being assessed.

Again, viewers of the dramas scored higher than those who watched the documentaries.

And viewers of the documentaries did not score significantly higher than those in the control group.

A previous study, published in 2013 in the journal Science, found that reading quality fiction books, such as the works of Charles Dickens, can also boost emotional intelligence.