Study on the Effect of Film Therapy on the Frustration Affordability of College Students in Northeast China : based on film industry aesthetics in the age of IT

Abstract

Considering the frustration affordability level of college entrants and investigating the frustration tolerance of undergraduates in Shenyang City University, this paper provides the basis for the research of improving frustration tolerance of undergraduates through quantitative research results and applies film therapy to the frustration regulation of college students by discussing the role of film therapy in improving frustration affordability ability of college entrants. This paper has concluded that the necessary of improving the frustration tolerance of college students in Northeast China and the feasibility of the film therapy programs on improving the frustration tolerance of college students in Northeast China. Meanwhile, this paper shows that the principle of film selection in film therapy should be based on the requirements of the aesthetics of the film industry in the IT environment. This paper provides a reference for refining the target of film therapy for film therapists to better apply film and television psychotherapy technology, and a basis for the film therapy activity program; Furthermore, it also has a certain reference significance for film and television media workers.

I. INTRODUCTION

In order to meet the current needs of reforming and improve the mental health level of college students, colleges and universities should initiate to adopt various measures on cultivating qualified talents in all-round development, so as to provide a strong reserve force for the development of the country.

Since American psychologist Rosenaweig proposed frustration tolerance in 1941. He defined frustration tolerance as the ability to resist setbacks without adverse reactions, that is, the ability of the individual to adapt or resist and deal with them [1]. After this concept, some scholars began to study the word in different fields, especially the psychological frustration tolerance of college students.

In recent years, some scholars have begun to try to use film therapy to protect the frustration tolerance of college students. The flexibility, non-linguistic features, nonguidance and interaction of film therapy are coincidentally in line with the common psychological problems of college students [2]. However, there are many studies in this stage of research that have positioned the subjects on a national sample of college students. However, we reckon that the survey target should be set to a small and targeted group, so that it can provide a reference for researchers in the region to carry out a further research work and can really take effective measures to ensure talent training quality. Therefore, we target the students of this study on college students in Northeast China. With the data of the survey, the conclusions could improve and enrich examples in the field of film therapy.

Film therapy is an art therapy that emerged in the early 21st century. Art therapy, broadly speaking, plays the role of the adjustment of human spiritual life, people will get relief consciously and unconsciously in the appreciation of art, get catharsis in the artistic creation. Art therapy is a conscious and spontaneous behavior and a way to deal with stress. In a narrow sense, art therapy is a method and process of diagnose, treatment or rehabilitation of some diseases in artistic interaction with patients under the guidance of professionals [3]. Film therapy is mainly to allow patients with different diseases to watch different content, rhythm, and types of films in a completely private space to suppress and treat their etiology [4].

Film therapy has been widely used all over the world. It covers a wide range of disciplines, including art, sociology, psychology and education. In terms of academics, representative researches such as thesis A Study on the Effect of Story Content in Film Therapy of Dr.Jo Sang-ho from Dong-Eui University in South Korea have all been conducted discussions on film therapy in the field of psychology and clinical medicine [5].

Film therapy has the characteristics of flexibility, non-verbal, non-directive and interactive art therapy. Because of this feature, it has a natural fit with adult mental health counseling [6]. Film therapy uses films to communicate with the subconscious of participant .Therapists and patients can use the story plots in the films to communicate, making patients more receptive, especially when it comes to personal privacy. Program issues to lay the foundation for patient success [3]. Therefore, the application of film in psychological counseling and treatment of college students deserves further exploration and promotion. In addition, As the mental health education mechanism of many universities in China is not perfect, many universities have not established special psychological counseling centers, which is far from meeting the treatment needs of students with mental illness [7].It is unrealistic for a college student with relatively difficult financial resources to spend a lot of consultation costs in a psychotherapy clinic, therefore watching a film is a popular and economical method for college students to guide themselves. Moreover, expanding film therapy is not only a perfect match for promoting college students' mental health, but also a very urgent act in current situation.

II. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD

2.1. Research Method

A total of 146 students from Shenyang City University were selected by cluster sampling. A total of 146 questionnaires were distributed and 101 valid questionnaires were recalled. The effective rate was 69.17%. Based on the survey results, 36 participants were drawn again and randomly divided equally into two groups: experimental group and control group, with 18 members in each group. An 8 weeks group activity of film therapy was carried out on the experimental group, and the control group did not intervene for the time being. After the activities of experimental group and control group were finished, both groups were tested at the same time, and the scores of frustration affordability of college students were recorded and compared.

2.2. Experimental subjects

In this study, there were 38 males, accounting for 37.32% of the total number of people surveyed; 63 females, accounting for 62.65% of the total number of people surveyed; the number of only child was 73, accounting for 71.6% of the total number of people surveyed; the number of non-only child was 28,accounting for 27.5% of the total number of people surveyed; 29 people with religious beliefs, accounting for 28.35% of the total number of people surveyed; 72 people without religious beliefs, accounting for 71.65% of the total number of people surveyed; the number of people whose families are located in cities is 67,accounting for 65.68% of the total number of people surveyed; the number of people whose families are located in rural areas is 34,accounting for 34.22% of the total number of people surveyed seeing as Table 1.

Table 1. General situation of 101 subjects.

2.3 Experimental tools

To explore the ability of tolerate frustration in college students, the Frustration Tolerance Scale, compiled by famous Chinese psychologist Liu Ye in 2007, was adopted. In appendix, we can see the Frustration Tolerance Scale.

The questionnaire uses a 5-point scoring method. Complete disagreement:1 point; Disagreement:2 points; Uncertainty:3 points; Agreement:4 points; Complete agreement:5 points.

There are two factors in the scale,25 items in total. Each item lists frustration situations and possible reactions of internal thinking emotion or external behavior response and is scored at level 5. The first factor of this dimension is internal thinking emotion which involves 15 items mainly describes individuals judge the impact of frustrations on themselves and the generated emotions. The second factor is external behavior which involves 10 items mainly describes the behavior of individuals when facing frustration. The higher the score of the individual, the stronger the ability to tolerate frustration. The retest reliability of the questionnaire is 0.824, and the empirical validity is 0.683 [2]. The topics corresponding to each factor are as follows seeing as shown in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2. Internal Factor corresponding question.

Table 3. External Factor corresponding question.

2.4. Experimental procedure

Based on previous studies, the films selected for experimental group are from the academic field of film therapy where six films of arousing psychological coping emotion of viewers.

At the first group activity, the experimental group and the control group respectively filled out their informed consent and the team contract, after the 8th activity, they filled out the frustration affordability questionnaire and the feedback form of team activities.

The principle of the film selection is based on the viewpoint according to the Plateau in China's core journals in 2018. The selection principle of film therapy must first consider the selected films that reflect the aesthetics of the film industry under the premise of the law of the film market economy. The selected film should have inspirational narrative or the poetic expression of the author, esoteric film theme, and vague type characteristics in the IT information age [8]. The matching points of the selected films and features are as follows:

● Inspirational narrative-

The Pursuit of Happiness;

Forrest Gump

● Poetic expression of the author-Spirited Away

● Esoteric film theme

The Shawshank Redemption

The Truman Show

● Vague type characteristics-Legend Of The Demon Cat

The experiment schedule for each week is as follows seeing as in Table 4.

Table 4. Experiment Schedule for Each Week.

After the initial screening of the scales recovered in this study, the blank or invalid questionnaires were removed for classification and compilation. SPSS software was used for data entry and statistical analysis. The statistical methods mainly included Descriptive Statistical Analysis, T Test, and One-way Analysis of Variance between Groups, etc.

III. DATA COLLECTION AND RESULTS

3.1. Frustration Tolerance of College Students in Northeast China

Frustration tolerance is divided into two factors: the internal thinking emotion factors and the external behavior performance factors.

Therefore, considering these two factors in the study the overall situation of frustration tolerance of college students is shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Overall situation of college students' frustration tolerance.

According to the research results, the score of frustration tolerance of college student was 60.77±8.67,the internal thinking emotion factor score was 32.80 ± 6.81,and the external behavior performance factor was 27.79±4.22. According to the data from the Yearbook of the Ministry of Health of China in 2019[9], the internal thinking emotion factor was 35.8±6.90,and the external behavior performance factor was 30.21± 4.42.These data indicate that the frustration tolerance of college students needs to be further cultivated and strengthened, and that the frustration tolerance of college students in Northeast China is lower than that of college students nationwide. No matter from the internal thinking emotion factor or the external behavior performance factor, the score is lower than the national norm seeing as Table 6.

Table 6. Comparison between Frustration Tolerance Scores of College Students in Northeast China and National Norms.

3.2. Differences of General Demographic Characteristics of Frustration Affordability of College Students in Northeast China

The study of the frustration affordability of 101 college students found that the affordability of college students was generally low, and the difference between college entrants of different genders in the total score of frustration affordability was statistically significant (p=0.011),as shown by the total score of 40.25±5.18 for boys in frustration affordability, which was significantly higher than the total score of 38.95±5.48 for college entrants. The difference in the factor of external behavior of only child and non-only child was statistically significant (P=0.040),which showed that the college students of only child scored 40.18±5.47 on the external performance factor, which was significantly higher than that of non-only college entrants with a score of 38.92±5.36.The total score of college students with religious beliefs in frustration affordability was 40.17±5.25, which was significantly higher than the score of 38.76±5.10 for non-religious college students.

Table 7. Difference in the general demographics of the total score of frustration tolerance.

3.3. Pretest of the Scale Score Differences between Experimental Group and Control Group before Experimental Intervention

Using Paired sample T test of Variance to compare the scores of the two groups of subjects in the Undergraduate Frustration Affordability Questionnaire, there was no significant difference between the two groups, which showed that the two groups of members are comparable, intervention studies can be carried out, results from which can truly and effectively explain the causality seeing as shown in Table 8.

Table 8. Differences in scores of the groups before experimental intervention

3.4. Post-comparison of the Scale Score Differences between Experimental Group and Control Group after Experimental Intervention

8 weeks group activity of film therapy was carried out on the experimental group, and the control group did not intervene for the time being. After the activities of experimental group and control group were finished, both groups were tested at the same time, and the scores of frustration affordability of college students were recorded and compared. The results showed that there were significant differences in the total score of frustration affordability of college students in the experimental group and the control group after Study on the Effect of film Therapy on the Frustration Affordability of College Students in Northeast China 162 intervention. After further multiple comparisons, in the factor of significant difference in the scale score, the difference between the experimental group and the control group reached a significant level for details below seeing as Table 9.

Table 9. Difference in scores of the groups after experimental intervention

3.5. Comparison of the Score Differences of Pretest and Post-test Intervention in Experimental Group and Control Group

Using Paired Sample T Test to compare whether the difference between the two groups of subjects of Undergraduate Frustration Affordability Questionnaire before and after intervention was statistically significant. The experiment showed that the total score of the students in the experimental group showed higher results than the control group after the intervention seeing as the table 10.

Table 10. The comparison of score difference between groups before and after experimental intervention.

IV. CONCLUSION

The frustration tolerance of college students in Northeast China generally needs to be improved, so the overall level of frustration tolerance of college students should be improved. The score is lower than that of college students in China. Boys scored higher on their internal emotions than girls, while girls scored higher on external behavior than boys.

An 8 weeks group activity of film therapy was carried out on the experimental group, and the control group did not intervene for the time being. After the activities of experimental group and control group were finished, the participants of two groups had statistical significance in the total score of the frustration affordability. Meanwhile, according to general film therapy, it has been improved on the frustration affordability of college students. Furthermore, the principle of film selection in film therapy should be based on the requirements of the aesthetics of the film industry in the IT environment as experiments have verified its effectiveness.

V. DISCUSSION

The results of the study show that gender differences are statistically significant in the scores of college students' ability to withstand frustration. The score of male ability to withstand frustration (40.25 ± 5.18) is significantly higher than that of female(38.95 ± 5.48), which may be related to the difference in the social roles of men and women. The society requires men to be healthy and brave from childhood, which prompted boys showed significantly higher frustration tolerance than girls. This research result is consistent with the research result of Cai Xiaoyi, a famous scholar in the field of Chinese psychology [10].

Is it an only child that statistically significant in the score of college students' ability to bear? The scores of only children among college students are significantly higher than those of non-only children. This is related to the role of the only child in the family. They are often the core of a family, so they can get more attention and protection, and they can get more support and encouragement when facing difficulties. Therefore, the only child in this study has higher frustration tolerance than the non-only child.

Religious belief is statistically significant in terms of the affordability of college students. When students with religious beliefs that encounter setbacks, religious doctrine and spirit can give them more spiritual support, which promotes the ability of people with religious beliefs in this study to withstand setbacks higher than new students without religious beliefs.

At present, the extensive application of film therapy is increasing in the field of art therapy. Based on new media, this study selects films as the media from the perspective of inheriting and carrying forward the concept of film culture content, aiming at the frustration affordability of college students, which is an exploratory study of film therapy. The results of the study show that film therapy is effective in improving college students' ability to withstand frustration. This is not only the film creates a natural psychological counseling scene, the viewer unconsciously invests his own consciousness in the protagonist of the film [11], but also the film as a medium of treatment helps the individual to release the hidden heart in the process of viewing the film. Stress increases the potential for self-psychological healing.

In the film therapy activities of the investigators, because of time limitation, the intervention did not follow up the study in the end, and the long-term effects of the film therapy have not been verified by practice. In future research, regular follow-up testing should be done for college students in the experimental group, and the most suitable frequency and period of film therapy should be observed through the score curve.