Prior research has suggested that mothers’ life logistics may increase opportunities for children to watch television. However, associations between structural circumstances of mothers’ lives and levels of children’s television use have not been empirically investigated. The contribution of this study is that it investigates maternal structural life circumstances longitudinally associated with children’s television time and potential mechanisms underlying this association. More specifically, the study examined the association between mothers’ working hours and children’s television time, and the mediating roles of mothers’ parenting time pressure and well-being in this relationship. Structural equation modeling using data from a two-wave panel survey of mothers of 1- to 4-year-olds ( N = 404) demonstrated a longitudinal relationship between mothers’ working hours and children’s television time. This relationship was mediated by mothers’ parenting time pressure and well-being, indicating that high maternal working hours create parenting time pressure and undermine mothers’ well-being, which encourages children to watch more television.

This article develops and tests a theoretical cognitive-affective process model of the hostile media effect (HME). To explain the HME, scholars have mainly focused on cognitive involvement, that is, the extent to which an issue is of personal importance. In addition, we introduce the notion of affective involvement and hypothesize three distinct routes responsible for a HME: a cognitive, an affective, and a cognitive-affective route. Simultaneously collected representative survey data from the United States, Norway, and France employing country-invariant measures provide clear evidence that the three routes each and independently drive the HME. Theoretical and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.

While media research has long ago acknowledged that watching TV is a social activity, only a few studies have examined the effects of co-viewing on adult reactions to a televised text. In the current investigation, we used social-cognitive theory combined with previous research on the intra-audience effect, audience identification, transportation, and attitude change to develop hypotheses connecting co-viewers’ reactions, co-viewers’ gender, and viewer’s post-exposure attitudes. Participants watched a movie segment that ended in a rape scene. We manipulated their confederate co-viewers’ displayed reaction (enthusiastic or bored) and gender, and subsequently measured perceived co-viewers’ attributions of responsibility for the rape, the viewers’ transportation, identification with the male protagonist, and acceptance of the rape myth (the tendency to attribute responsibility for sexual violence to the victim). Results demonstrated that for those participants who correctly perceived the engagement manipulation, the effect of the confederate co-viewer’s engagement manipulation on rape myth acceptance was positive and significant. In addition, both manipulations had an indirect effect on rape myth acceptance, sequentially mediated through transportation and identification.

This experiment examines the effects of media portrayals of persistent pursuit on beliefs about stalking. Exposure to a film that depicted persistent pursuit as scary led participants to endorse fewer stalking-supportive beliefs. Although exposure to a film that depicted persistent pursuit as romantic did not lead to greater endorsement of stalking-supportive beliefs for all participants, it did have this effect among those higher in perceived realism or transportation. Possible mediators of the relation between media exposure and beliefs about stalking are also explored. Results indicate that media portrayals of gendered aggression can have prosocial effects, and that the romanticized pursuit behaviors commonly featured in the media as a part of normative courtship can lead to an increase in stalking-supportive beliefs. This latter finding may have implications for the legal support female stalking victims are able to access.

Several forms of computer-mediated communication (e.g., online support groups, blogs, social network sites) have been shown to be important resources for social support among individuals coping with illness. The reported study attempts to better understand social support processes in these settings by examining the implications of language style matching—a form of interpersonal coordination involving the degree to which speakers match one another’s use of function words (e.g., articles, prepositions, pronouns). Language style matching among a sample of health bloggers and their readers over a 3-month period was tested as a predictor of bloggers’ perceptions of support available from their readers. The results show that language style matching contributed to bloggers’ perceptions that their readers are willing and able to serve as a resource for specific forms of social support.

This article tests a resolution of the difficulties in specifying how goals and situations relate to one another. The new theory suggests a distinction among situational features. “Reasonably apparent” features are those that are fairly obvious at the start of an interaction. “Subjective” features are emergent and depend on a participant’s experience of the interaction. The proposed theory is that reasonably apparent situation features cause primary goals, which cause subjective situational characteristics, which in turn activate secondary goals. In Study 1 ( n = 461), results of analysis of open-ended situational descriptions were consistent with this new theory. The difficulties in testing complex causal relations with categorical data led to Study 2 ( n = 1,435), which also supported the new theory.

As suggested by the common phrase “spoiler alert!” many people avoid spoilers for narrative entertainment. However, recent research has found that exposure to spoilers may actually enhance enjoyment. The present study sought to replicate and extend those findings with a multidimensional approach to enjoyment and by examining choice of spoiled versus unspoiled narratives. Comprehension theories suggest that spoilers should improve media appreciation, whereas excitation-transfer theory suggests that spoilers harm arousal and suspense. Additionally, media users’ conventionally held beliefs imply that respondents should choose unspoiled stories. A within-subjects experiment ( N = 412) tested these hypotheses. As expected, unspoiled stories were more fun and suspenseful. Surprisingly, unspoiled stories were also more moving and enjoyable in general. No effect of media choice emerged.

The relationship between young boys and girls is a point of contention in the Iranian society and a concern for politicians and cultural officials. It is also one of the main and omnipresent themes of IRIB TV series addressing youths’ problems. IRIB in recent decade has paid a greater attention to the problem, particularly in its TV series and has tried to introduce a model based on religion and tradition in this regard. Using narrative analysis, the present article examines the way relationship between young boys and girls is represented in TV series in years 1383 to 1393 (Iranian calendar). The findings indicate that relationship between young boys and girls in the studied series is depicted according to one of the following patterns: mutual romantic relationship; one way romantic relationship; mutual rational relationship (value- based) along with least emotional connection; and social relationship (Islamic sisterhood and brotherhood). The third kind of discovered relationship under parents’ surveillance has been represented as “good” in the series. Other types have been somehow represented as “bad” or have been totally denied.

This study explores the relationship between caregiver confirmation and children’s attachment security during the transition to kindergarten. Caregiver-child dyads ( N = 50) read a story about the transition to school, caregivers responded to hypothetical child statements of concern regarding starting school, and caregivers completed the Attachment Q-Sort measure (Waters, 1995). Caregivers’ behaviors during portions of the storybook task and their written responses to hypothetical child statements of concern were coded for verbal and nonverbal “confirmation as acceptance” and verbal “confirmation as challenge.” Children’s attachment security scores were produced from the Attachment Q-Sort. Caregivers’ level of education moderated the association between caregiver confirmation as verbal and nonverbal acceptance and children’s attachment security such that there was a positive association between confirmation and attachment security primarily for caregivers with low levels of formal education. Implications for the literatures on confirmation, attachment, and the transition to school are discussed.

In virtual environments (VEs), users experience visceral simulations that feel like the real world. Virtual experiences are proposed as a novel operationalization of gain and loss framed environmental messages. A 2 (gain vs. loss frame) × 2 (high vs. low interactivity) × 3 (pretest, posttest, delayed posttest) experiment was conducted. Immediately following exposure, virtual experiences promoted environmental behavior by reducing paper consumption by 25% compared to a control group. In addition, the gain framed experience of growing a virtual tree promoted behavioral intentions more effectively than the loss framed experience of cutting down a tree. Response efficacy mediated the relationship between framing and environmental behavioral intentions. One week after exposure, response efficacy heightened as a result of the gain frame. Participants in the high interactivity conditions also reported higher levels of environmental behavior than those in the low interactivity conditions one week following exposure.