Communication Research

Given the vast amount of permanently available entertainment content and the high pleasure that viewers derive from it, the question of when and why users disengage from a media entertainment viewing session becomes more pressing. We argue in this paper that communication theories lack a conceptualization of the disengagement part of the communication process. The study presents a novel dynamic view on media use, and argues that specific processes that occur during media exposure contribute to its termination. The assumptions of the theoretical framework are tested with an event-based experience sampling study during TV series viewing sessions among 89 participants (1,952 answered surveys). The findings show that negative and positive response states evolve (partly) independently of each other in the course of entertainment viewing sessions: Despite an increase in negative experiences of goal conflict, guilt, and fatigue, individuals’ level of enjoyment remained stable during a viewing session. These results indicate that negative responses do not necessarily interfere with the experience of enjoyment. The level of enjoyment was the strongest predictor for whether someone stopped a viewing session indicating that hedonic experiences might overrule rational decisions to stop due to being fatigued or having other things to do.

Four studies examine the appeal of protagonists who are sometimes immoral in real-world (Studies 1 & 2) and fictional (Studies 3 & 4) settings. In both, character appeal is influenced by the combination of moral/immoral behaviors a protagonist performs and their moral/immoral behavior relative to another person’s (i.e., their moral superiority/inferiority). Additionally, Study 2 examines the effect of character behavior (moral/immoral vs. highly self-beneficial) on appeal, finding that if two protagonists are equally immoral, one who elsewise behaves morally at times is more appealing than one who is elsewise self-beneficial. Studies 3 and 4 replicate these findings using a fictional drama and fantasy premise instead of a real-world setting. Findings suggest the effect of characters’ immoral behavior on appeal varies based on the moral behavior of comparison characters regardless of the setting’s fictionality. Discussion considers whether moral superiority alters the likelihood that audiences will emulate an imperfect hero’s immoral actions.

Research has shown that performing moral or immoral actions in video games can affect the players’ moral self-worth and evoke moral emotions. People may compensate for their immoral behaviors by performing more moral actions, but sometimes performing moral actions can also license them to perform immoral behaviors later. The current study examines whether players engage in moral licensing or moral cleansing behaviors within and after video game moral scenarios. Study 1 is an exploratory study that examined a sequence of moral dilemmas in the game Papers, Please, and found that players alternated between choosing the moral choices and the accurate choices, indicating signs of moral balancing when faced with moral choices that conflict with their in-game goals. Study 2 utilized a 3 (moral vs. immoral vs. control) × 2 (congruent charity vs. incongruent charity) experiment using a moral event in the game Life is Strange to examine the moderating effects of issue congruency on moral balancing. Study 3 used three different games to replicate Study 2. The findings showed that players who performed moral actions in the game also devoted more efforts to a charity on a congruent issue. However, participants who performed a moral behavior in the game committed significantly less effort to a charity on an incongruent issue, indicating a moral licensing effect. Study 2 found that performing immoral actions in a game can motivate players to devote more efforts to a subsequent charity, regardless of issue congruity, but this moral cleansing effect was not observed in Study 3.

To understand how viewers respond to two common movie plots (falling in love and cheating), this study considers the perspectives they might take. Study 1 tests which protagonists’ perspective viewers adopt when watching movies with falling-in-love versus betrayal plots. Study 2 then shows that viewers’ perspective orientation influences their affective experiences and enjoyment of betrayal movies but not falling-in-love movies. Study 3 explores the processes that lead to varying levels of enjoyment, attained by viewing movies with falling-in-love and cheating plots. A moderated mediation model reveals three processes: affective states resulting from goal attainment/failure, meaning derived through identification, and affective dispositions formed according to moral judgments. Viewers’ romantic beliefs moderate the second process, and their morality standards moderate the third.

Since Internet pornography (IP) is widespread and can become problematic for some users, investigating the personality traits which correlate with its consumption is important. Though many studies have been conducted on the relationship between IP, personality traits, and attachment, no meta-analysis has been conducted to synthesize this literature. We aimed to address this gap through a meta-analysis comprising 51 studies with 45,808 individuals (female = 35.19%, mean age = 37.81). The strongest correlation was found for sexual compulsivity (r = .372), followed by impulsivity (r = .273), self-control (r = −.210), narcissism (r = .172), and conscientiousness (r = −.147). Statistically significant positive correlations were found between impulsivity (r = .245), (sexual) compulsivity (r = .392), neuroticism (r = .114), and anxious attachment (r = .131) with problematic use of IP. The correlations between conscientiousness and both general IP (r = −.145) and problematic use of IP (r = −.149) were statistically significant and negative. Moderator analyses revealed that the internal consistency of pornography measurement moderated the relationship between IP and neuroticism.