Pessimism and Anxiety: Effects of Tween Sitcoms on Expectations and Feelings About Peer Relationships in School

摘要

Television programs for tweens (roughly 8-14 year olds) offer glimpses of life in high school, often depicting prototypical crowds (e.g., jocks and populars) and various forms of interpersonal hostility. Fifth graders (N = 97) were randomly assigned to watch a tween television episode that was high or low in social conflict (two exemplars at each level) and then answered questions about their future middle school and their habitual exposure to tween television programs. Consistent with predictions afforded by the General Aggression Model (Anderson & Bushman, 20022. Anderson, C. A. and Bushman, B. J. 2002. Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53: 27-51. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231[CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [CSA]View all references), habitual exposure was associated with expectations of encountering specific crowds in middle school (person schemata), with expectations of less friendliness and more bullying (behavioral scripts), and with greater anxiety about attending their future school. Similarly, those who saw high-conflict episodes anticipated more hostility and less friendliness in their future school and felt more anxious and less positive about going there than those who saw low-conflict episodes (effects that were partly mediated by perceptions of character hostility). There were also significant interactions between habitual and experimental exposure: Participants who did not habitually watch tween programs and who saw a high-conflict episode resembled habitual viewers in their lowered expectations of friendliness and heightened expectations of hostility.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2012.664762