Mood Management and Video Rental Choices

Utilizing mood management theory (Zillmann, 1988 Zillmann, D. 1988. “Mood management: Using entertainment media to full advantage”. In Communication, social cognition and affect, Edited by: Donohew, L., Sypher, H. E. and Higgins, E. T. 147–171. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc..  [Google Scholar]) and its extension, the mood adjustment approach (Knobloch, 2003 Knobloch, S. 2003. Mood adjustment via mass communication. Journal of Communication, 53: 233–250. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), we recruited participants who were entering a video rental store to assess possible links between mood and video choice. This procedure was done to maximize external validity in examining the relationship between mood and media choice. Participants reported on their current mood before entering the store; on exiting they reported on their rental choices. Overall, aspects of the viewing situation (alone vs. with others), mood, and to some extent planned activities for the night were related to video choice but not always in the ways we had predicted. In general, those who felt angry and bored chose fewer dramas; those who felt calm chose more comedies, and those who felt energetic chose more action movies but avoided crime dramas and comedies. Those who felt nervous, however, chose more–not fewer–horror movies. In addition, those who felt sad chose more–not fewer–dramas and crime dramas but avoided dramatic comedies. Rather, sad people seemed to gravitate to serious films. Possible explanations for such findings are provided. Support for mood management is somewhat stronger than for mood adjustment.     

Video Games,Immersion, and Cognitive Aggression: Does the Controller Matter?

The influence of video game realism and controller naturalness on aggression was examined with an experiment that manipulated game realism and controller naturalness. Perceived controller naturalness increased perceptions of realism of the game and led to greater immersion. The more realistic game was perceived as such and led to greater immersion. Ultimately, greater immersion led to more cognitive aggression. Results are discussed in terms of a mental models approach and the process of model matching.     

The Development of Aggressive Mental Models in Young Children

This study was undertaken to examine why a previous study revealed that children inaccurately recalled “seeing” violence in a nonviolent cartoon clip. We used a 2 (still photo vs. video clip) × 2 (action hero vs. neutral character) repeated measure experimental design and showed preschoolers (33–60 months) two photos and two video clips. Children were asked to tell a story about what might happen next. In addition, parents filled out a brief questionnaire. Results indicate that first, children whose parents reported that they had never been exposed to violent cartoons gave fewer aggressive responses than those who had seen one. Second, character type appears to have a greater effect on children's aggressive mental models than the narrative does. Overall, the effect of stereotypical action characters (as compared to neutral characters) is greater than it is for the video clip versus still-photo manipulation. Third, older children provided more aggressive story endings to the action character in the video sequence compared to younger children who saw the neutral character in the still photo or the neutral character in the video sequence. In sum, a single exposure to action cartoons may help very young children establish mental models for aggression. Second, both older and younger children are influenced by action cartoons, but older children are better able to incorporate story information whereas younger children focus on character appearance. Results are discussed in terms of mental models and child development.     

Social-Psychological Origins of Feelings of Presence: Creating Social Presence With Machine-Generated Voices

Two experiments were conducted to test several questions regarding very young children's (6–24 months) learning (i.e., simple action imitation and word learning) from video. Specifically, this study tested the video deficit, which is the tendency for infants and toddlers to learn significantly more effectively from live information than they do when identical information is presented on a screen. First, the video deficit was explored using two different tasks. Overall, the pattern of results was similar for action imitation and word learning. Specifically, the video deficit was present for both simple action imitation and for word learning in the middle cohort, but not present for younger and older children. Second, there was some mitigation of the video deficit from seeing socially meaningful actors for action imitation; however for word learning the effect only approached significance. Third, repetition helped children learn words more effectively, especially for the youngest and oldest cohort; however, repetition did not help for simple task imitation.     

Computerized tabletop games as a form of a video game training for old-old

This research aimed at investigating the utility of a computerized version of a cognitively stimulating activity as a video game intervention for elderly. The study focused on the effect of a 6-week extensive practice intervention on aspects of cognitive functioning (vigilance, working memory (WM), inhibition, reasoning) of old-old participants (N = 29), randomly assigned to trained or active control group. The difference between groups was in the content of the extended video game practice – cognitively complex card game for trained and computerized version of a simple dice-game of chance for control participants. A pretest, posttest and a 4-month follow-up measurement was conducted. Results revealed improvements in both groups, except for improved reasoning found only in trained participants. These results suggest that: (1) improvements are dependent on the complexity of the program, (2) cognitively stimulating activity are a valid training procedure for old-old, (3) novelty of computer use is an important factor in determining training efficacy.     

Coping Strategies and Resolution in Mothers of Children With Cerebral Palsy

“Parental resolution” represents parents coming to terms with their child’s health condition. Differences in the use of coping strategies between mothers who were resolved versus unresolved to their child’s diagnosis was investigated, and a possible moderating effect of these strategies was explored. A strategy aimed at mobilizing the family to acquire and accept help (institutional, formal support) was shown to be a significant moderating variable, in a way that its more frequent use allowed mothers of children with better functional status (but not mothers of children with poorer functional status) to reach resolution.     

On the automaticity of emotion processing in words and faces: event-related brain potentials evidence from a superficial task

The degree to which emotional aspects of stimuli are processed automatically is controversial. Here, we assessed the automatic elicitation of emotion-related brain potentials (ERPs) to positive, negative, and neutral words and facial expressions in an easy and superficial face-word discrimination task, for which the emotional valence was irrelevant. Both emotional words and facial expressions impacted ERPs already between 50 and 100 ms after stimulus onset, possibly reflecting rapid relevance detection. Following this initial processing stage only emotionality in faces but not in words was associated with an early posterior negativity (EPN). Therefore, when emotion is irrelevant in a task which requires superficial stimulus analysis, automatically enhanced sensory encoding of emotional content appears to occur only for evolutionary prepared emotional stimuli, as reflected in larger EPN amplitudes to faces, but not to symbolic word stimuli.     

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over: The effect of task completion on the savoring of success

The present research investigated a common yet to date unexamined assumption that individuals are unlikely to savor success when they have not yet fully completed a task. In Study 1 (N = 83), we assessed savoring responses of soccer players who were either winning or were tied at the end of the first half (in progress) and at the end of the match (completed). In Study 2 (N = 121 undergraduates), performance feedback (successful vs. average) and task completion (in progress vs. completed) were manipulated and savoring was assessed. In both studies, successful individuals reported savoring their positive experience less when the task was in progress as compared to completed. Results of a third study (N = 152 undergraduates) showed that lower savoring of success was due to individuals’ focus on and worries about future performance as well as the perception that positive emotions have limited utility. We discuss these findings in terms of the consequences for performance and well-being.