The impact of theatre on social psychology outcomes : systematic review and meta-analyses

There has been a growing interest in using artistic interventions as a method of developing interpersonal competence. This paper presents a meta-analysis evaluating the impact of theatre interventions on social competencies. Twenty-one primary studies totaling 4064 participants were included, presenting evidence available since 1983. Included studies were assessed in terms of quality, heterogeneity, and publication bias. Our findings indicated that active theatre participation significantly improved participants’ empathic abilities, social communication, tolerance, and social interactions, with the largest pooled effect size for social communication (0.698) and the smallest for tolerance (0.156). Our findings did not corroborate the impact of theatre on self-concept. This paper shows that theatre interventions have a positive impact on social competencies. The paper makes a methodological contribution by showing that randomized and non-randomized studies yielded comparably valid results.