Television stories and social reality: Moral effects and the role of emotional processes

这个项目旨在探索虚构电视作为替代社会体验的主要来源与其受众的社会现实观念的复杂关系。我们在DFG资助的第一阶段(2009-2012年)获得的见解的基础上，分析了当代电视连续剧中道德信息的特定类型模式，并得出了一组道德信息(媒体对正确和错误行为的描绘的含义)。下一阶段(2012-2014)将通过两项相关研究来探讨媒体中的道德信息对受众道德认知和行为的影响。这里提出的第一项研究是一项横断面培养调查，研究特定体裁的道德信息模式如何影响普通观众。在修养理论和道德心理学的基础上，我们假设，与较少的观众相比，道德含量高的类型的重度观众会高估他们喜欢的类型中普遍存在的违反规范的行为，更有可能认识到特定情况下的道德相关性(道德敏感性)，将具有某些长期可供社会判断使用的道德结构(道德长期性)，并且更有可能使用类型一致的道德推理图式。我们认为，感受情感的倾向，如同理心、同情心和对情感的需求，除了具有叙事参与的倾向外，还会缓和这些关系。对于后者，我们在第一个时期制定了有效和可靠的措施，现在将采用。第二项研究从第一阶段叙事内容分析的另一个重要发现出发：愤怒是虚构电视节目中最常见的违反规范的情绪反应。第二项研究的目标是探索电视叙事中这种情绪表现对道德认知和报复行为的影响。我们假设，观看包含愤怒和报复的违反规范的剧本应该会使相应的道德图式更容易理解；这将增加道德敏感度。此外，道德图式更容易被用来处理后续的社会信息；人们会倾向于记忆和回忆与道德概念相关的社会信息。最后，暴露将启动不道德的行为选择(包括报复)；人们将利用激活的图式，特别是充满情绪的行为脚本来计划自己的行为。情绪过程对叙事效果和道德发展都起着决定性的作用。因此，我们假设上述效果将通过观看过程中的情感过程(叙述性情感参与、移情、同情)进行调节。

This project seeks to explore the complex relationships of fictional television as a major source of vicarious social experience and its audiences social reality notions. We build on insights gained in the first period funded by the DFG (2009-2012), where we analyzed genre-specific patterns of moral messages in contemporary television series and derived a set of moral messages (implications of media portrayals about right and wrong behavior). The next period (2012-2014) will explore the influence of moral messages in media on audiences moral cognition and behavior in two related studies. The first study proposed here is a cross-sectional cultivation survey, which deals with the way in which genre-specific patterns of moral messages affect regular viewers. Building on cultivation theory and moral psychology, we assume that heavy viewers of morally laden genres, in comparison to light viewers, will overestimate norm violations prevalent in their favored genre, be more likely to recognize the moral relevance of a particular situation (moral sensitivity), will have certain moral constructs chronically accessible for social judgments (moral chronicity) and will more likely use genre-consistent schemas of moral reasoning. We assume that dispositions to feel emotions such as empathy, sympathy, and need for affect moderate these relationships, in addition to the propensity for narrative engagement. For the latter, we have developed a valid and reliable measure in the first period that will be employed now. The second study sets out from another important finding of the narrative content analysis conducted in the first period: Anger is the most frequent emotional reaction to norm violations displayed in fictional television. The goal of the second study in the suggested project is to explore the effects of such emotional displays in television narratives for moral cognition and retaliation behavior. We assume that watching norm violation scripts containing anger and retribution should make the corresponding moral schema more accessible; this will increase moral sensitivity. Also, moral schemas are more accessible for processing subsequent social information; people will tend to memorize and recall social information related to moral concepts. Finally, exposure will prime immoral options of behavior (including retaliation); people will make use of the activated schemas and specifically the emotionally laden behavioral scripts to plan their own behavior. Emotional processes play a decisive role in both narrative effects and moral development. Thus we assume that the effects described above will be mediated through emotional processes during viewing (narrative emotional engagement, empathy, sympathy).