Background: Identification with a media character is an influential factor for the effects of a media product on the recipient, but still very little is known about this cognitive process. This study investigated to what extent identification of a recipient with the suicidal protagonist of a film drama is influenced by the similarity between them in terms of sex, age, and education as well as by the viewer's empathy and suicidality.
Subjects and methods: Sixty adults were assigned randomly to one of two film groups. Both groups watched a drama that concluded with the tragic suicide of the protagonist. Identification, empathy, suicidality, as well as socio-demographic data were measured by questionnaires that were applied before and after the movie screening.
Results: Results indicated that identification was not associated with socio-demographic similarity or the viewer's suicidality. However, the greater the subjects' empathy was, the more they identified with the protagonist in one of the two films.
Conclusions: This investigation provides evidence that challenges the common assumption that identification with a film character is automatically generated when viewer and protagonist are similar in terms of sex, age, education or attitude.