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This study tests two sets of competing hypotheses about the relationship between trait reactivity to positive and negative stimuli (i.e., motivational reactivity), moral stances on social principles (i.e., social morality), and political ideology. The classic view contends that a specific political ideology or social morality results from a specific motivational reactivity pattern, whereas the dynamic coordination account suggests that trait motivational reactivity modulates an individual’s political ideology and social morality as a result of the majority political beliefs in their immediate social context. A survey using subjects recruited from a liberal-leaning social context was conducted to test these hypotheses. Results support the dynamic coordination account. Reactivity to negativity (indexed by defensive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of the dominant social morality and political ideology. Reactivity to positivity (indexed by appetitive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of nondominant social moral and political stances.

Guided by nonlinear dynamical systems theory, this study examined the degree to which media can synchronize individuals’ emotional arousal responses (as indicated by skin conductance) during video ...

The present study examined how negative feelings induced by anti-obesity Public Service Announcements (PSAs) influence viewers’ emotional processing of subsequent food commercials. We also investig...

Previous research on the effects of visual framing of athletes has inferred that photographic visual frames drive visual behavior by demonstrating that visual frames influence picture viewers’ eval...

This paper aims to demonstrate how an analytical paradigm shift from the General Linear Model (GLM) used in most communication processes and effects research to dynamic systems theory (DST, a nonli...

Extensive research demonstrates that exposure to threatening anti-tobacco messages can lead to defensive message processing which reduces message effectiveness. However, research investigating whether this effect is moderated by the smoking status of the message viewer is lacking. In this study, participants (N = 48 smokers and N = 51 non-smokers) viewed and rated secondhand smoke anti-tobacco messages depicting both smoking cues and threat content, or messages depicting neither while heart rate, skin conductance, and facial EMG were recorded. Post viewing, self-reported emotional experience, level of counterarguing, and recognition memory were measured. In support of the LC4MP, there were no differences between smokers and non-smokers' responses for non-threatening messages absent in smoking cues. However, messages that contained both smoking cues and threat content were defensively processed by smokers - but not non-smokers - as indicated by significantly faster heart rate, lower recognition memory and higher self-reported negativity, arousal, and counterarguments. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study tests the hypothesis that defensive message processing, like defensive behaviors in the real world, has two directions, fight-and-flight. The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) characterizes defensive message processing by increases in unpleasantness and arousal reports, and accelerated heart rate indicating either a focus on internal processing (internal thoughts) or the active withdrawal of cognitive resources from processing highly arousing and unpleasant media messages. However, the LC4MP has not included direct measures that allow discrimination between fight-and-flight responses. Psychological reactance theory (PRT) predicts defensive responses including anger and counterarguments (reactance) when media messages threaten viewers’ freedom and autonomy. We hypothesized that PRT provides the LC4MP with the appropriate measures (anger and counterarguments) needed to discriminate fight-or-flight responses. Results supported this prediction. Particip...

Social media is becoming one of the most common deployment methods for antidrug and risk message campaigns. This is largely due to the low cost and high distribution that social media affords. This article argues that the social media approach to antidrug messaging also results in greater attention to the message over time. This article reports results from a study that examined how the combination of a short gain-or-loss framed text message interacts with a subsequent pleasant or unpleasant antidrug video message to influence motivational activation and information processing. Based on previous work investigating how different emotional trajectories in public service announcements (PSAs) elicit different patterns of motivational activation and cognitive processing, it was predicted, and found, that emotionally incongruent combinations of the text frame and video content resulted in the coactivation of the motivational systems. Placing a gain frame before a video message affects the overall proces...

This manuscript, based upon previous work related to the dynamic processing of emotional trajectories, investigated how variable trajectories of emotional content can elicit motivational activation over time. Specifically, five emotional trajectories were examined: pleasant, unpleasant, pleasant and unpleasant simultaneously, pleasant leading to unpleasant, and unpleasant leading to pleasant. The resources available for encoding were indexed via secondary task reaction times, and memory was assessed via audio and video recognition. The results indicated that audio recognition improves as activation increases in the appetitive system while visual recognition improves as activation in the aversive system increases. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of communication theory and practice.

This study examines how trait differences in the appetitive and defensive systems and how automatic, impulsive and deliberate, reflective responses to alcohol cues predict overall alcohol use. By utilizing a measure of trait motivational activation and measures of implicit and explicit attitudes toward alcohol that indicate the self-control system – impulsive vs. reflective – that determines behavior, this research demonstrates that higher trait appetitive system activity, ASA, and positive impulsive/implicit alcohol attitudes independently predict alcohol use, while trait defensive system activation, DSA, and explicit attitudes toward alcohol did not independently predict use.

Background Pain is a universal issue and is of particular concern in mechanically ventilated patients, as they require intensive nursing care and multiple invasive procedures, while being unable to communicate verbally. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of music on pain experienced by mechanically ventilated patients during morning bed bathing. Methods Of the 60 mechanically ventilated patients enrolled in this single-center pilot study between March 2013 and October 2015, the first 30 received no music and the next 30 the music intervention, during the morning bed bath. The Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS) score was determined during and at the end of the bath then 30, 60, and 120 minutes after the bath. BPS score changes over time were assessed and the proportions of bath times spent with a BPS score ≥5 and with the maximal BPS score were determined. Results At baseline, no patient had pain (defined as a BPS score

The goal of this paper is to examine the relative validity of a set of psychophysiological measures as psychological correlates of attention and arousal when watching moving audio/visual messages. To do this, participants watched film clips selected to vary on three media variables known to influence both attention and arousal: structural pacing (slow or fast), valence of emotion (pleasant, unpleasant), and level of arousing content (calm, arousing). Heart rate and skin conductance were measured time-locked to the presentation of each film clip. A variety of analysis techniques for each of these measures, some dynamic and some static, were compared with one another on their ability to perform in a manner suggested by general theoretical predictions. Strengths and weaknesses of each measure are identified based on these comparisons and recommendations about best practices are made.

Este artículo analiza el estado paradigmático (en sentido de Kuhn) del campo de la comunicación masiva. Se sugiere que el primer paradigma de dicho campo, el de los efectos de los medios, más que estar en estado preparadigmático o de ciencia normal, se halla en estado de crisis. Se propone una descripción del actual paradigma en crisis, se sugieren maneras por las cuales las concepciones de la naturaleza fundamental de lo que se estudia en comunicación masiva podrían estar cambiando, y se presentan los elementos de un nuevo paradigma que estaría emergiendo en el campo

In this study we analyze studies published since 1990 which tested task performance in a single and multitasking environment where at least one of the tasks was a media use task; we identify theoretical approaches, conceptual, and operational definitions of multitasking research; we critique definitions of successful multitasking; and we analyze published results in terms of task-related complexity and cognitive and perceptual system overlaps. We conclude that complexity and overlaps appear to be important variables underlying multitasking research results and provide recommendations for future research in the area.

Sexy and humorous content increase attention and memory for television advertising. This paper suggests that different biological mechanisms underlie their similar effects. Results show that sexy content elicits immediate appetitive activation and increased resource allocation. Humorous content elicits an incongruity/mismatch orienting response followed by an increase in appetitive activation, resulting in increased resource allocation and memory for the humorous ads. More resources are allocated to ads with an overall unpleasant compared to pleasant tone and the addition of sexy and humorous content to unpleasant compared to pleasant ads results in better memory.

This article uses the Dynamic Human Centric Communication Systems Theory to reconceptualize 4 selected attributes of attention from a human-centric point of view. Information is defined with respect to its relationship in the environment to the human in terms of time and space. The 4 attributes considered are stability, imminence, motivational relevance, and task relevance. An experiment was conducted in which encoding was assessed using a signal detection analysis of a change detection task. Results supported the prediction that story and motivational relevance would have opposite effects on the encoding of stable information as a function of imminence. Differences in memory predictions made by traditional theoretical approaches and the DHCCST are discussed in light of the results of the experiment.

While disgust repels and offends us, it has functionally evolved over time to compel our attention—both to core disgusts (i.e., blood, guts, body products) and sociomoral violations (i.e., injustices, brutality, racism)—making it a quality of many entertainment messages that may keep audiences engrossed and engaged. An experiment exposed participants to two types of core disgusts and sociomoral disgusts in TV/film messages and collected self-report emotional responses, psychophysiological indicators of dynamic emotional and cognitive processing, and recognition memory for content. Results demonstrate that no two disgusts are alike: Sociomoral disgusts captivate our attention and elicit a slower, more thoughtful response pattern than core disgusts, and the nature of the core disgust elicits different responses as well.

This study examined how emotional and physiological responses to pictures of alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages vary as a function of motivational type and alcohol use. The authors used the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing to guide predictions and the motivational activation measure to measure the reactivity of participants' appetitive and aversive motivational systems. Participants viewed and rated 9 pictures of alcoholic beverages and 9 pictures of nonalcoholic beverages. Facial electromyography data were collected during viewing. Overall results show that heavy users respond both more positively and more negatively to pictures of alcoholic beverages than to pictures of nonalcoholic beverages, whereas light users respond more positively overall and more positively to pictures of alcoholic beverages than to pictures of nonalcohol beverages. In addition, heavy use predictably reverses the response predicted by motivational type.

This study assessed relationships among individual differences in trait motivational reactivity, executive functioning, and neurovisceral regulation of emotion and attention indexed via resting heart rate variability (rHRV). We derived predictions regarding these relationships according to neurovisceral neural network theory. Because lower rHRV has been suggested as an endophenotype of less adaptive behaviour, low rHRV individuals were predicted to have high aversive and low appetitive trait motivational reactivity, while high rHRV individuals were predicted to have high reactivity in both appetitive and aversive motivational systems. These predictions were supported. Motivational reactivity also was related to executive functioning deficits, although the pattern of results was not in the predicted direction. Results suggest that trait motivational reactivity scores are related to visceral responses proposed in the neurovisceral integration circuit as well as in the modulation of these responses by higher-order cognitive control systems related to executive function.

This article further tests the theoretical hypotheses supporting the use of number of camera changes (cc) and information introduced (ii) as indicators of resources allocated and resources required to process television messages. These two measures, combined, yield an indicator of available resources and can, therefore, be used as an indicator of television message complexity. Previous research has validated their use, averaged over time, as a global measure of message complexity. The two studies reported here test the underlying local complexity predictions and present support from two studies for the ii, cc combination as a valid indicator of local message complexity. Study 1 demonstrates that when a camera change has an increasing number of ii dimensions available resources become scarcer, eventually reaching cognitive overload. Study 2 examines the relative level of resources required for each of the seven dimensions, and demonstrates that specific theoretical groupings of dimensions (novelty, motivat...

This article analyzes the Kuhnian paradigmatic status in the field of mass communication. It is suggested that the field's first paradigm, Media Effects, is in a state of crisis rather than a preparadigmatic state or a state of normal science. Finally, this article proposes a description of the current paradigm-in-crisis, suggests ways in which conceptions of the fundamental nature of what we are studying may be shifting, and proposes the elements of a new paradigm which may be emerging in the field.