Sex role messages in television commercials: An update

Sex Roles - Traditionally, television commercials have served to reinforce conventional sex role stereotypes. The purpose of this study is to determine if there have been any changes in the...     

Effects of programme context on memory of humorous television commercials

This study examined the effects of programme context on the memory of humorous television advertisements among a youth sample aged 16 to 18 years. Additionally, the relationship between the enjoyment and involvement properties of the programme and memory for advertisements were investigated. An experimental design was developed to test the memory for a set of six humorous and a set of six non-humorous advertisements within two programme contexts—a news bulletin and a comedy show. Findings indicated that unaided recall for advertisements was affected by programme type with memory for advertising being better from news than from comedy. Further, memory for humorous advertisements was better than that for non-humorous advertisements. Audience involvement with, and enjoyment of, the surrounding programme were found to be associated with poorer memory for advertisement content. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memory for television advertisements as a function of advertisement–programme congruity

An experiment tested memory for a beer advertisement (placed either at the beginning or the end of the centre advertisement break) within four programme contexts featuring beer drinking either before and after, before or after the centre break, or not at all. The relationship between subjective audience evaluation of the programme and memory for advertisements was also investigated. The sample consisted of students (N = 79) aged 17 to 26 years. Brand recognition of the beer advertisement was significantly related to programme content, showing memory for the advertisement being enhanced when relevant programme material followed the break. Congruent material shown before the centre break had the reverse effect of impairing memory for the advertisement. Increased levels of programme involvement were found to be associated with improved recall and recognition of embedded advertisements but higher rated ‘happiness’ of the programme was associated with poorer memory for advertisement content. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender displaying television commercials: A comparative study of television commercials in the 1950s and 1980s

Recent researchers have argued both that there has been change in the way gender is portrayed in television commercials and that gender images have remained stereotypical. Comparing television commercials from the 1950s/early 1960s to commercials from the 1980s, this study explores the issue of how much, if any, change has occurred in gender images. Additionally, the study focuses on the gender display of main characters and the circumstances under which it varies. Results indicate that there has been change in the images of women but not men. The activity that women are pictured in significantly changed from the 1950s to the 1980s, and a change in activity has the strongest effect on the display of gender.Partial funding for this research was provided by the Academic Senate of the University of California, Riverside. Statistical assistance was provided by Masako Ishii-Kuntz. Research assistance was provided by Kathryn Bigelow, Saralyn Caloff, and Eloy Zarate. We gratefully acknowledge the use of films housed at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Our thanks to the anonymous reviewers atSex Roles for their helpful comments.     

Watching your troubles away: television viewing as a stimulus for subjective self-awareness

Three studies explored the role of television viewing in eliciting subjective self-awareness and positive self-feelings. Study 1 assessed the effects of self-awareness manipulations via exposure to a neutral television program on actual-ideal discrepancies. Those who watched television showed significantly smaller self-discrepancies than those who did not, independent of mood. Study 2 demonstrated the ecological validity of this finding by replicating it with people watching television in their own homes. Study 3 investigated whether manipulations of self-feelings affected television watching. Results indicated that those who received failure feedback watched television longer than those in a control condition who likewise watched television longer than those who received success feedback. Television appears to be an effective stimulus to direct the focus away from oneself and to render people less aware of how they are falling short of their standards.     

The effect of television day part on gender portrayals in television commercials: A content analysis

Gender portrayals in 2,209 network television commercials were content analyzed. To compare differences between three day parts, the sample was chosen from three time periods: daytime, when the audience is mostly women; evening prime time, when the sex of the audience is more evenly distributed; and weekend afternoon sportscasts, when men are a large percentage of the audience. The results indicate large and consistent differences in the way men and women are portrayed in these three day parts, with almost all comparisons reaching significance at the .05 level. Although ads in all day parts tended to portray men in stereotypical roles of authority and dominance, those on weekends tended to emphasize escape from home and family. The findings of earlier studies which did not consider day part differences may now have to be reevaluated.     

The effect of context on the silver ceiling: a role congruity perspective on prejudiced responses

Three studies examined role incongruity as a source of age bias in hiring decisions. Building on previous research demonstrating contextual variation in prejudice, the authors predicted that prejudiced responses emerge particularly in contexts where group stereotypes misalign with the requirements of social roles. Findings indicate that (a) older workers are particularly penalized in occupational contexts that are quickly changing, (b) older workers are perceived as less adaptable than younger workers, and (c) the tendency to prefer younger than older workers more for a dynamic than a stable company is mediated by perceptions of adaptability. Finally, adaptability perceptions better predicted hiring bias than did global evaluations of older people and levels of contact with older people. These experiments provide initial evidence that perceived fit to roles is a determinant of contextual variation in prejudiced responses.     

The intrusive commercial: Influence of aggressive TV commercials on aggression

Two experiments have been conducted to investigate the aggression-eliciting properties of an aggressive commercial. The first experiment investigated the influence of an aggressive commercial on subsequent delivery of shocks to a confederate by male or female subjects, in presence and in absence of previous instigation to aggress. The second experiment examined the heart rate modifications before, during and after exposure to the aggressive commercial. Twenty males and 20 females participated to each experiment. Findings justify the concern for the aggression-eliciting properties of aggressive commercials.     

Exposure to slim images in mass media: television commercials as reminders of restriction in restrained eaters

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study was to explore the effects of exposure to slim images and diet-related products in commercials on actual food intake in relation to dietary restraint. DESIGN: An experimental design was used, in which food intake was measured in 124 female students who watched either a sad or a neutral movie on television, which was interrupted by either commercials featuring slim models and diet products, or neutral commercials. Subsequently, participants filled out questionnaires on dietary restraint and any tendency toward overeating. MAIN OUTCOME VARIABLE: Intake of snack food while watching television. RESULTS: It was found that highly restrained students exposed to commercials with slim models and diet-related products ate less food, whereas less restrained eaters ate slightly more after seeing these commercials. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that restrained eaters confronted with diet products and slim images when watching television will be reminded of their restricted eating behavior and eat less. The present study provides support for the reinhibition theory of slim media images.     

The impact of educational television on young children's reading in the context of family stress

This study examined the impact of educational media use on young children's (ages 2–5) reading and pre-reading skills in the context of various family stressors (lack of economic resources, family conflict, and maternal depression). We examined the utility of models positing that family stressors directly predict the quality of the home learning environment and educational media use, which then directly predict children's reading and pre-reading skills. Results indicated that all family stressors were negatively related to the quality of the home learning environment, which was in turn directly related to children's reading skills. However, only family conflict was negatively related to educational media use, though media use was positively related to reading skills. Moreover, the magnitude of the relationship between educational media use and reading skills was equal to that of the relationship between the quality of the home learning environment and reading skills. Results suggest that educational media use is less prone to disruption by family stressors than other influences on young children's reading and pre-reading skills.     

Familial influences on television viewing and aggression: A sibling study

Familial influences on aggressive behavior and TV viewing were investigated in a survey of adolescent siblings. Same-sex siblings resembled one another in aggression (brothers, r = 0.59; sisters, r = 0.52) and in their exposure to violent TV programs; opposite-sex siblings were dissimilar. Within individuals, the frequency of watching crime and action programs correlated nonsignificantly with aggression. Two other variables, however, were associated with aggression: identification with aggression and aggression consequences. These relationships also held up between families (BF, covariance of sibling' averages) and within families (WF, covariance of sibling' differences). The latter WF relationship indicated that one sibling was typically the more extreme on both aggression and its correlate than a brother or sister. These results were interpreted in light of behavioral genetic data that suggest substantial genetic influences, few common environmental influences, and large within-family environmental influences on personality development.     

Recall as a function of orienting task and retrieval cue

Abstract.— In an incidental learning experiment, a 40 word list with 4 words representing each of 10 taxonom-ic categories and beginning with each of 10 first letters was presented to 120 subjects. Half the subjects sorted the words according to category, half according to initial letter. After an interval of either 1 or 6 min, retention was measured with cued or free recall tests. The subjects in the Category sort-Category cue condition obtained higher recall than the subjects in the Category sort-Letter cue condition, whereas level of recall did not differ between the Letter sort-Letter cue and Letter sort-Category cue conditions. These results together with other results from the experiment were considered as arguments against the Encoding Specificity Principle but in favor of a theory separating encoding from retrieval.     

Children's understanding of television advertising: a revisit in the Chinese context

The authors conducted a survey of 1,758 elementary school children (6-14 years old) from December 2001, to March 2002, in 3 Chinese cities with different levels of television advertising. The authors used D. R. John's (1999) model of consumer socialization as the theoretical framework for their study. More than half of the children whom the authors interviewed were able to understand that television stations broadcast commercials to earn money. Their understanding of the purposes of television commercials and the persuasive intention of television commercials developed with age. The authors examined the influence of gender, level of advertising, and level of television viewing on children's understanding of television advertising by using 3-way factorial models.     

The effects of a critical television viewing curriculum on the behavior and viewing skills of emotionally disturbed adolescents in residential treatment

This study investigated the effects of training critical TV viewing skills on the subsequent attitudes and behaviors of emotionally disturbed adolescents in residential treatment. In order to test these effects, 48 institutionalized adolescents ranging from 12–18 in age, served as subjects. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Pre- and posttests utilized three measures of television knowledge and attitudes. Eighteen variables comprising three dependent measures were analyzed utilizing a 2 × 2 split-plots design. Training in the technical aspects of viewing proved successful in reducing susceptibility to the negative effects of the medium and provided skills that were effective in dealing with generalized aggressive behavor.     

Self-control depletion and sleep duration: the mediating role of television viewing

Abstract

Objective: Sleep insufficiency has been related to self-control failure: people fail to go to bed in time and end up sleep deprived. The role of state self-control in predicting bedtime and sleep duration has not yet been investigated. Based on research claiming an overlap between depleted self-control resources and fatigue, self-control depletion may foster earlier bedtimes. Conversely, self-control depletion also increases the propensity to procrastinate bedtime by giving in to the immediate gratification of late night entertainment. This study therefore looked at procrastinatory television viewing and its intermediary role in the association between state self-control and bedtime. The implications for sleep duration are examined. Design: Firstyear students (N = 234) participated in an online survey. Using Day Reconstruction Method, they charted their activities and experiences during the preceding day and subsequent bedtime behavior. Results: Self-control depletion was directly related to earlier bedtimes, which we explained by its similarity to fatigue. This was associated with longer sleep duration. Self-control depletion was indirectly related to later bedtimes because it increased the propensity to procrastinate by watching television. This was associated with shorter sleep duration. Conclusion: This study exposes a dual pathway between self-control depletion and sleep duration, whereby procrastinatory television viewing may reduce sleep duration.     

Perception of depth: Processing of simple positional disparity as a function of viewing distance

Dependency of perceived depth (relative to the fixation point) on disparity, viewing distance, and the type of the stereoscopic stimulus was investigated. Nearly complete constancy of depth, as required for a veridically matched perception, was observed only at small disparity values and with the larger square-formed stimulus; under these conditions, perceived depth corresponded well with real depth intervals for close viewing distances. Additionally, a model for perceptual processing of both variables, disparity and viewing distance, was applied to the data.     

Experimental insights into the socio-cognitive effects of viewing materialistic media messages on welfare support

ABSTRACT

This experimental study draws on cultivation, dispositional materialism, and schema theories to test the effects of commercial media viewing on material values and welfare support. Data were collected from a cross-sectional British sample using a web-survey priming methodology (N = 487, ages 18–49). Findings suggest that (a) materialism and anti-welfare orientations operate through associated and contiguous cognitive-affective mechanisms that can be triggered by momentary exposure to materialistic media messages (MMMs). (b) Heavy consumers of television shows that valorize and regularly portray wealth, fame, and luxury are significantly more materialistic and anti-welfare than lighter consumers. (b) Chronic attention to MMMs may indirectly increase support for the governmental enactment of punitive welfare policies via cultivating self-enhancement related schemas, which when instantiated, decrease dispositional orientations toward empathy, altruism, and communality. This research contributes nuanced theoretical and experimental insights into how ubiquitous commercial media potentially undermine prosocial development and societal well-being.     

The relationship of television viewing time to scores on the Fear Survey Schedule

The responses of 460 undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology to the Wolpe-Lang Fear Survey Schedule (FSS) were examined to determine the effect of television viewing time. Contrary to predictions of cultivation theory, heavy viewers (more than four hours daily) did not obtain significantly higher total fear scores than light (less than two hours) or medium viewers (two to four hours). Similarly, the scores on five FSS Subscales—Social Phobia, Agoraphobia, Fear of Bodily Injury, Illness and Death, Fear of Sexual and Aggressive Scenes, and Fear of Harmless Animals—did not reveal any differences related to viewing time. However, the total fear score of female respondents increased with viewing time and was significantly higher than male scores; significant sex differences were found in four subscales as well. Implications for future use of the FSS and cultivation theory were discussed.