If someone in your neighborhood sympathizes with the negative character when watching fairy tales, or with the bad guys who destroyed Santa’s presents, they may have something dark inside them. Of course, I’m exaggerating. However, something like this came out of an experiment conducted by a group of American psychologists. Subjects filled out a questionnaire about how likeable they were to which movie character and also filled out personality questionnaires. And it all fit together! Where there is sympathy with a negative character, there are very often dark character traits, especially psychopathy and “everyday sadism” (not to be confused with sexual sadism). Again, you will find narcissists among fans of positive heroes, but not nearly as many.
It’s another small piece of evidence that shatters the hypothesis that murderers and serious criminals are influenced by violence in media and computer games. Rather, it’s that their darker character traits cause them to be fascinated by violence in media and games.
It is more realistic to assume that the media cause harm in other ways. They shift the actions of those who have dark traits only quite weak. They won’t become murderers, but they will be a little more unpleasant in everyday life, less cooperative, more vicious… at least that’s what Daniel Kahneman’s experiments suggest. But overall, it’s an under-researched area.
A specific study of films and character traits was conducted on volunteers and almost all female students volunteered. That is, women in their 20s. So it’s not even certain that it works on young men and adults. However, if your son’s girlfriend or your young girlfriend is into, say, the owner of the circus in Yogi Bear, be careful!