The Psychology of Documentaries: Curiosity, Empathy, and the Pull of the Real

A Brief History

The documentary is nearly as old as film itself, beginning with the actuality films of the earliest cinema, brief records of real scenes and events that fascinated the first film audiences simply by showing them the real world in motion. As film developed, so did the documentary, with early filmmakers developing the form into extended records and interpretations of reality, and the term documentary itself coming into use to describe films that documented the real world. These early documentaries established the form, the film that presents itself as a record and interpretation of reality rather than a work of fiction. The documentary has evolved through many forms and movements, from the observational styles that sought to capture reality with minimal intervention to the more interpretive and essayistic forms that openly shaped their material into arguments and narratives. Across these developments, the documentary has grappled with the tension at its heart, between the claim to present reality and the inevitable shaping of that reality through the choices of filmmaking. In recent years, the documentary has experienced a remarkable flourishing, driven substantially by the streaming platforms that have made documentaries widely available and have fueled, in particular, the explosive popularity of the true-crime documentary. This flourishing has brought the documentary to a wide audience and made it a central form of popular entertainment as well as of information and art. The documentary's long history and recent flourishing testify to the enduring and growing appeal of the form, the distinctive power of the film that claims to present the real.

The Pull of the Real

The documentary's defining feature and the source of its distinctive power is its claim to present the real, the assertion that what we are watching actually happened, actually exists, and this claim gives the documentary a hold that fiction cannot match. The knowledge that a documentary presents reality, that its people and events are real, gives it a distinctive power, an added weight and impact that the same content, presented as fiction, would lack. This pull of the real is the source of the documentary's distinctive appeal. The distinctive power of the real reflects a substantive feature of human psychology, the added weight and impact that we grant to what we believe to be true. We respond differently to what we believe is real than to what we know is fiction; the knowledge that something actually happened, that real people were actually affected, grants it a weight and an impact that fiction, however moving, does not carry in the same way. A tragedy we know to be real moves us differently than the same tragedy known to be invented; the reality confers a weight that the fiction lacks. This added weight of the real is a substantive feature of human psychology, and it is the source of the documentary's distinctive power, the claim to reality conferring on the documentary's content a weight and impact that fiction cannot match. The pull of the real also reflects a substantive human interest in reality itself, a desire to know and understand the actual world that the documentary satisfies. Beyond the added weight of the real, human beings have a genuine interest in reality, a desire to know what actually is, what actually happened, how the world actually works, and the documentary satisfies this desire, offering knowledge and understanding of the real world. This interest in reality, the desire to understand the actual world, is a substantive human motivation, and the documentary serves it, a desire that the documentary, in presenting the real, is uniquely positioned to satisfy.

Curiosity and the Desire to Understand

A central engine of the documentary's appeal is curiosity, the human desire to know and understand, which the documentary engages by opening questions and promising to answer them. The documentary engages the viewer's curiosity, raising questions about its subject and promising the understanding that answers them, and this engagement of curiosity is a substantive source of its appeal. The psychologist George Loewenstein offered an influential account of curiosity as arising from an information gap, a perceived gap between what one knows and what one wants to know, which generates a desire to close the gap by acquiring the missing information. On this account, curiosity is aroused when we become aware of a gap in our knowledge, a question we cannot answer, a mystery we cannot resolve, and this awareness generates a desire, sometimes an intense desire, to acquire the information that would close the gap. The documentary exploits this mechanism systematically, opening information gaps, raising questions and mysteries, and promising the information that will close them, engaging the viewer's curiosity and drawing them through the film in pursuit of the understanding it promises. The true-crime documentary, in particular, is built on this mechanism, the mystery of the crime opening an information gap that the documentary promises to close, the viewer's curiosity about who did it and why drawing them through the investigation. The satisfaction of curiosity, the closing of the information gap, provides a genuine pleasure, and the documentary's provision of this satisfaction is a substantive source of its appeal. When the documentary delivers the information that closes the gap it has opened, when it answers the question or resolves the mystery, it provides the satisfaction of curiosity satisfied, a genuine pleasure that rewards the viewer's engagement. Beyond mere pleasure, the documentary can provide genuine learning, the acquisition of real knowledge and understanding that is among its most substantial values.

Windows Into Other Lives

A distinctive power of the documentary is its capacity to open windows into other lives, to grant the viewer access to the experiences, worlds, and perspectives of real others, engaging and expanding the viewer's empathy. The documentary can take the viewer into lives and worlds they would never otherwise encounter, granting access to the experiences and perspectives of real others, and this access engages and can expand the viewer's empathy. The documentary's capacity to grant access to the experiences of real others engages the human capacity for empathy, the understanding and sharing of others' experiences, and can expand it, extending the viewer's empathy to people and experiences beyond their own. By taking the viewer into the lives of real others, the documentary invites the viewer to understand and share, however partially, the experiences of people different from themselves, engaging the empathy that such understanding involves. This engagement of empathy can be expansive, extending the viewer's understanding and concern to people and experiences they might otherwise never have encountered or considered, broadening the circle of their empathic concern. This empathic power gives the documentary a substantive capacity to foster understanding and, at its best, to promote positive social change, the empathic engagement with the experiences of others fostering the understanding and concern on which social improvement can build. By fostering empathic understanding of others' experiences, particularly the experiences of the marginalized, the suffering, or the misunderstood, the documentary can promote the understanding and concern that motivate positive social change, its empathic power serving not only the viewer's understanding but the broader social good. Many documentaries have contributed to social change by fostering empathic understanding of experiences and injustices that had been ignored or misunderstood, the documentary's empathic power serving as an instrument of understanding and reform. That is a value that gives the documentary an importance beyond its appeal as entertainment.

The True-Crime Phenomenon

The explosive popularity of the true-crime documentary deserves particular attention, for it engages a distinctive cluster of psychological appeals, the fascination with crime and danger that has drawn audiences to true crime in its many forms. One substantive source of the appeal of true crime is the engagement of the human vigilance toward threat, the disposition to attend to danger that may have evolved because attending to threats aided survival. Human beings are disposed to attend to threats and dangers, a vigilance that likely aided survival, and true crime engages this vigilance, its dangers and threats commanding the attention that our threat-vigilant psychology grants to danger. Some researchers have also suggested that true crime may serve a function of learning about danger, allowing the viewer to understand threats and, perhaps, to feel better prepared to recognize or avoid them, a function that may contribute to the particular appeal of true crime to some audiences. True crime also engages the human concern with justice and the desire for its restoration, the viewer invested in the identification and punishment of the wrongdoer, in the restoration of the justice that the crime violated. This engagement of the concern with justice is a substantive source of the appeal, the viewer's investment in the restoration of justice driving their engagement with the story. Additionally, true crime may engage the confrontation with mortality, the crimes it depicts, often involving death, bringing the viewer into contact with mortality, the fascination with which is a substantive feature of human psychology. It is worth noting, though, that the true-crime phenomenon raises ethical questions, about the treatment of real victims and their families, that the thoughtful viewer does well to bear in mind, the entertainment drawn from real tragedy carrying an ethical weight that its appeal should not obscure.

The Shaping of Truth

The documentary's claim to present reality, the source of its power, also raises its central ethical and epistemic challenge, for the documentary, however it claims to present reality, inevitably shapes and interprets that reality through the choices of its making. No documentary simply presents reality; every documentary shapes its material through the choices of what to film, what to include, how to arrange and frame it, constructing an interpretation and a narrative from the raw material of reality. The inevitable shaping of reality in the documentary means that the documentary's claim to present the truth must be received with a critical awareness, a recognition that the documentary presents a shaped and interpreted reality rather than an unmediated truth. Every documentary makes choices, selecting and arranging its material, framing its subject, constructing a narrative, and these choices shape the reality the documentary presents, making it an interpretation rather than an unmediated record. This does not mean that documentaries are false or that their claim to reality is empty, but it means that the documentary presents a shaped and interpreted reality, and that its claim to truth must be received with the critical awareness that recognizes this shaping. The documentary's authority of the real, its claim to present truth, also gives it a persuasive power that can be used honestly or manipulatively, and the awareness of this power is a substantive element of media literacy. The documentary's claim to present reality gives it a persuasive authority, the sense that it presents truth lending its interpretations a persuasive force, and this authority can be used honestly, in the service of genuine understanding, or manipulatively, in the service of propaganda or distortion. The awareness that the documentary's authority of the real can be used to persuade, and that this persuasion can serve honest or manipulative ends, is a substantive element of media literacy, the critical capacity to evaluate the documentary's claims and interpretations rather than simply accepting them on the authority of the real. That critical awareness distinguishes the honest documentary from the manipulative, and receives even the honest documentary as a shaped interpretation rather than an unmediated truth.

Reflections for the Viewer

The documentary is a form of distinctive power and distinctive appeal, engaging deep human motivations and serving substantial human needs, while raising questions that its claim to truth makes unavoidable. For those who enjoy it, the documentary offers engagement, understanding, and the distinctive power of the real. For those who reflect on it, the documentary offers a window into the human relationship to truth, curiosity, empathy, and the fascinations that draw us to the real. The form operates as entertainment, as information, as art, and as an instrument of understanding and, at its best, of positive change. For viewers who enjoy documentaries, understanding their psychology may deepen the appreciation of the engagement they provide and sharpen the critical awareness their reception requires. The pull of the real, the engagement of curiosity, the expansion of empathy, and the distinctive appeals of true crime each draw on substantive human motivations, and recognizing them can illuminate the sources of the documentary's appeal. At the same time, the recognition that the documentary presents a shaped and interpreted reality, that its authority of the real can be used honestly or manipulatively, sharpens the critical awareness that the thoughtful reception of documentaries requires. The documentary's capacity to expand empathy, to foster understanding of experiences and perspectives beyond one's own, is among its most valuable powers, and engaging with documentaries that open windows into unfamiliar lives can genuinely broaden one's understanding and concern. The documentary, at its best, is an instrument of empathy and understanding, and seeking out documentaries that expand one's understanding of others is a way of using the form's empathic power for one's own growth and, potentially, for the broader good that empathic understanding can serve. In the end, the psychology of the documentary is the psychology of our relationship to truth, curiosity, and the real. Because it is real, the documentary's defining claim, is the source of its distinctive power, the added weight we grant to what we believe to be true conferring on the documentary a hold that fiction cannot match. And the documentary's inevitable shaping of truth raises the critical challenge that its claim to reality makes unavoidable, the recognition that the documentary presents a constructed interpretation rather than an unmediated truth. A few questions are worth sitting with: Why does knowing something is real change how it lands on me? Whose life did this open a window into, and whose did it leave out? And who chose what I just saw, and what did they choose to leave on the cutting-room floor?

The skills that turn watching into reflecting are ones families can build together, through teaching emotional regulation and building confidence in children, so that a child learns to ask not just what a film showed but who chose to show it. For the companion piece in this series, see the psychology of game shows.

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