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Chapter 19
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CggjBd7o-PM
personality
• Personality: individuals’ characteristic
patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior
• First or second life personality?
Selection and enjoyment
• Use and selection
– Some uses of media include passing the time,
habit, companionship, relaxation, escape
– Still other studies suggest that it is personality;
eg. Weaver “neurotic” personality types use
television for passing the time, companionship
and stimulation
• Mood management
– The impact of personality in moderating mood
management has not be examined much
– Perhaps the maintenance of positive moods may be a
universal motivation
– One study showed that non-lonely subjects preferred
media with uplifting portrayals of older people, lonely
subjects viewed negative portrayals where the
character is shown to be forlorn or neglected
– People who are empathetic, hostile, extroverted or
optimistic respond differently to media content
• Enjoyment
– Since most research is on personality and violence or
pornography, it may be assumed that no research is
on comedy means that there are no differences
among subjects on this genre
– Media violence: enjoyment is higher among viewers
who possess characteristics related to aggression,
hostility…
– One study showed that greater liking of “hard” rock
music was related to higher scores on toughmindedness, forcefulness, and discontentedness
– Does this make sense?
• Perhaps people that have antagonistic
dispositions may actually be less likely
than more sensitive persons who watch
violent media, thus allowing them to enjoy
it more
• Pornography
– Sensation-seeking is associated with
pornographic media content
Attraction to Pornographic Stories on the Internet: A Commentary on "Clinical Encounters with Internet
Pornography" by Thomas P. KalmanJournal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic Psychiatry; Winter2008
• According to Dr. Thomas P. Kalman, Internet
pornography influences people's beliefs,
attitudes and values, as well as impact people's
professional life, family life and relationships.
• Based on most media studies, nonviolent and
violent pornography lead to a wide variety of
negative effects, including acceptance of rape
myths and encouragement of aggressive
behavior.
• The pornography industry in the United States
generates annual revenues of
• $10 billion to $14 billion A healthy percentage of
this figure comes from pay-per-view movies on
cable and satellite, websites, and in room hotel
services.
• The companies that profit from pornography,
either currently or in the past, include: AT&T,
Yahoo!, Marriott, Westin and Hilton
• The studies have treated personality as an
independent variable
• Independent variable: creates change in a
dependent variable
• Sadness-evoking entertainment
– Enjoying sad films is associated with higher
levels of empathy, communal (feminine)
gender-role self perceptions and loneliness
– People who are reminded of their own
mortality may find tragic entertainment more
meaningful and comforting, allowing a safe
haven to confront fears
Personality as a dependent
variable
• One study suggests that long-term effects
of playing violent video games can result
in the creation of aggression-related
knowledge structures that change the
individual’s personality
Journal of Adolescence; Feb2004, Vol. 27 Issue 1, p23, 17p
• It is believed that repeated exposure to real-life and to
entertainment violence may alter cognitive, affective, and
behavioral processes, possibly leading to
desensitization.
• The goal of the present study was to determine if there
are relationships between real-life and media violence
exposure and desensitization as reflected in related
characteristics.
• One hundred fifty fourth and fifth graders completed
measures of real-life violence exposure, media violence
exposure, empathy, and attitudes towards violence.
• Regression analyses indicated that only exposure to
video game violence was associated with (lower)
empathy.
Comfortably Numb
Desensitizing Effects of Violent Media on Helping Others
Brad J. Bushman1,2 and Craig A. Anderson3
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ABSTRACT—Two studies tested the hypothesis that exposure
to violent media reduces aid offered to people in pain. In
Study 1, participants played a violent or nonviolent video
game for 20 min. After game play, while completing a
lengthy questionnaire, they heard a loud fight, in which
one person was injured, outside the lab. Participants who
played violent games took longer to help the injured victim,
rated the fight as less serious, and were less likely to
‘‘hear’’ the fight in comparison to participants who played
nonviolent games. In Study 2, violent- and nonviolentmovie
attendees witnessed a young woman with an injured
ankle struggle to pick up her crutches outside the theater
either before or after the movie. Participants who had just
watched a violent movie took longer to help than participants
in the other three conditions. The findings from both
studies suggest that violent media make people numb to the
pain and suffering of others.