Emotions and mass media
3 From noise to nucleus
Emotion as key construct in processing media messages
Elly A. Konijn and Jelte M. ten Holt
In the early days of communication research, emotions were seen as ‘noise’ – they were hardly studied as key concepts in research concerning the reception process of media messages. The emphasis was largely on cognitive aspects such as recall, learn-ing, thoughts, and beliefs. Understandable, since theories such as those of the
‘hypodermic needle’ effects of mass media ruled, in which scholarly attention for the individual processing of mass media messages was limited (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955). Hypodermic needle and related ‘sender–receiver’ theories resembled behaviorist theorizing such as stimulus–response models and ignored ‘black boxes’
such as inner feelings that were conceived of as not relevant to study. Serious messages worth studying conveyed through mass media could therefore not deal with affect, feelings, or emotions (cf., Bryant and Miron 2004; Zillmann 2003). Such affective aspects were reserved for entertainment media, where affect was mostly studied in an understanding of processes of emotional involvement and gratifi ca-tions. Nowadays, the borders between entertainment, news as well as information fare become blurred and emotion research is growing in importance. Although still in its infancy, there is a growing number of media effect studies showing the important role of emotions and affect in infl uencing how media messages are perceived (Nabi 2009; Nabi, So, and Prestin, this volume). Interestingly, these devel-opments run in parallel to certain develdevel-opments in psychology – the main discipline of today’s emotion research.
Until the 1980s, emotion research in psychology was dormant and behaviorist theorizing with S–R models dominated the fi eld. A number of emotion psychologists – drawing on insights from Jean-Paul Sartre, Magda Arnold, and Richard Lazarus – coined the idea that emotions fulfi ll important functions for the human kind. Namely, that they serve as signals to inform individuals what is relevant for them. Emotions warn of threats and dangers, and point at benefi ts to one’s well-being. That is, emotions tell us what is relevant and what is not (Frijda 1986). Thus, functional theories on emotions emerged and caused a boost in emotion research in recent years. Important improvements in research methodology (e.g., fMRI) further helped to develop the fi eld. Interestingly, psychologists seemed to hold the belief that mass media should not be part of psychology. ‘Real psychologists’ – it seemed – should study people and mass media were not people. Although media are created and consumed by people, clearly affect people and have been steadily growing in importance to people, media are not ‘people’ as such and thus seemed of little interest to mainstream psychology. However, with the recent realization that mass media and psychology most certainly have things in common, the amount of
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 research into mass media by psychologists seems to have proliferated. As mass
media becomes ever more sophisticated, it becomes more and more skilled to tug at the heart strings. For the present chapter, therefore, developments in the area of psychological emotion research are of special interest, especially in view of the increasing interest in the role of emotions on media’s impact. As emotion-related research in communication and media studies begins to fl ourish, it may greatly benefi t from recent developments in emotion psychology. Similarly, emotion psychologists may enrich their insights by embracing emotion research related to media.
Thus, the present chapter deals with the psychology of emotions in processing media messages, assuming that emotion processes in media reception do not differ fundamentally from those in everyday communication. In the following, we provide an overview of several recent advances in emotion research that appear of particular interest to studying emotions and media. We do not pretend to be exhaustive here;
instead we selected some recent research lines that are of special interest for media-related emotion research. First, we will briefl y discuss how theories on emotions in mass media evolved. Recent conceptualizing of ‘multileveled’ emotions in response to media exposure led us to connect to recent theorizing on emotion regulation, which we cover under the next heading. Furthermore, we focus on positive emo-tions, which have largely been ignored in psychology until recently. Psychology’s general focus on negative emotions and events is illustrated in theories such as Terror Management Theory (TMT), which has also been applied to explain media effects. Finally, recent developments in neuroscience bring new insights in how emotions play an important role in processing media messages. Obviously – as the fi nal section describes – plenty of directions for future research in emotions and mass media are open in which psychology and media effects research should fruit-fully join forces.
Mass media, emotions, and meta-emotions
When it comes to theorizing on emotions and affect in relation to mass media, the main theories for a long time were based on ideas very similar to Aristotelian catharsis (from his famous Poetics), such as championed by Feshbach (1955, 1956). Catharsis concerned the idea that by engaging in – for example – aggressive behavior or the observation of aggressive behavior, people could get release from their anger or aggressive feelings. Despite its appeal, cathartic theory does not agree with observed scientifi c evidence, which sometimes even shows the opposite. For example, a recent meta study (Anderson and Bushman 2002) shows that those who engage violent media are on average more aggressive than people who do not or do to a lesser degree (also Barlett and Gentile, this volume). Likewise, identifi cation with a charac-ter enhanced rather than reduced aggression in adolescents (Konijn et al. 2007).
Theories emerged that challenged cathartic notions, such as role modeling and imitation models (e.g., Bandura 1962, 2001). Likewise, cultivation theory (Gerbner et al. 2002) stated that mass media’s alternative environment to the real world would not offer a release from emotions such as aggression, but instead would twist people’s perception of reality. That is, mass media offered uniform messages to which people would adjust their real-world beliefs. Nevertheless, cathartic-based the-ories further fl ourished in concepts of identifi cation and empathy with characters,
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especially within entertainment media (cf., Cupchik, this volume). Mood manage-ment theory (Zillmann 1983; Knobloch-Westerwick and Alter 2006) also emerged, stating that people selectively expose themselves to particular media programs in order to manage their moods, to keep up or restore pleasant states or to avoid nega-tive affect.1 While being exposed, people get aroused by what they see or read, expe-riencing suspense, excitement, fear for the hero, etc. The relief of such arousal when the dramatic confl ict is resolved causes a pleasant state. How people would get aroused by what they see or read was explained by disposition theory (Zillmann 2000; also Raney, this volume). Disposition theory proposes that people naturally empathize with the sufferings of others and therefore feel fear and distress on behalf of likable heroes and when the heroes triumph they enjoy their victory.
A big chunk of the theories that dealt with emotions and mass media are con-cerned with people becoming involved with the character represented in the media.
Notable exceptions are probably to be found in persuasion research such as fear appeals and humor studies (see Konijn 2008; Nabi and Oliver 2009). A drawback of most of such character-based theories is that they cannot explain the liking for bad characters or villains in movies and video games. Problematic here is that most of this theorizing supposes that more involvement means more enjoyment, which would imply that if you did not like the character, you would not like the program.
This is obviously not true, though, as numerous programs and stories have dislikea-ble – even abhorrent – characters, but are still very involving. In the television series Heroes, for example, the serial killer Sylar is an essential and intriguing part of the story arch. Currently, research into negative affects in media and bad villains and abject characters is falling short. After all, entertainment does not always display or evoke emotions that we would normally consider entertaining, with such fi lms as Requiem for a Dream and American History X offering up an emotional rollercoaster ride that certainly leaves us affected and just as certainly leaves us a little worse for wear when it is all done. A game such as Manhunt or a movie such as Funny Games has an impact that can still be felt many years after initial exposure (cf. Cantor this volume). Curiously, the feeling is pretty negative (fi lled with fear, thrilled, tensed, sometimes even literal nightmares), yet we highly appreciate the experience, the movie or game, though we may feel very distant from the bad characters. Why do we enjoy media that we know will expose us to negative emotions, or why are we thrilled by identifying with a bad murderous main character in a video game? Such questions still remain unanswered.
In an attempt to overcome this lack of knowledge, scholars have pointed at the notion of mixed or multileveled emotions and parallel processing of positive and negative affects. Liking, enjoying or appreciating a character may then be defi ned as a trade off between involvement (e.g., empathy) and distancing (e.g., abhor) (Konijn and Hoorn 2005). Thus, we may admire Hannibal Lector for his smart witti-ness, yet abhor his murdering deeds. Likewise, in wishful identifi cation a character may be liked for some desirable feature(s) which viewers regret not possessing themselves. Thus far, most identifi cation conceptualizations only considered simi-larity as constituent for liking or enjoyment and focused on one-leveled emotions.
Traditional theories saw negative affects or emotions as opposed to positive ones.
Thus, in drawing on insights from emotion psychology (e.g., Cacioppo et al. 1999), we are able to gain a better understanding of how we may like the so-often negative feelings that are stirred by the mass media.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The notion of multileveled emotions and parallel processing of emotions is also
found in the paradox of enjoyment of sad movies (Oliver 1993) and the concept of meta-emotions (Bartsch et al. 2008). Meta-emotions conceptualize emotions and thoughts about emotions (cf. Rorty 1978), which allow people to experience a similar base emotion as a media character – such as sadness at the death of a protagonist – yet, also experience different emotions in refl ection on these character-based emotions (e.g., pride on being able to empathize). Thus, the emotion in direct response to media exposure might be negative, while the meta-emotion can be posi-tive. The concept of meta-emotion can be criticized for, among others, not actually referring to an emotion but rather to an appraisal.2 Very much like primary and secondary appraisal as described by Lazarus (1966), secondary emotions as coined by Rorty (1978), reactive and refl ective responses as described by Cupchik (1994), or appreciation as in Konijn and Hoorn (2005; also Oliver and Bartsch 2010). This way, many viewers could highly appreciate the shedding of their own tears while watching the dying scene of Titanic, whereas losing one’s loved one usually is not appreciated in real life. Such notions of multileveled experiences in response to media exposure resemble recent theorizing in psychology regarding emotion regulation.
Emotion regulation and media use
The regulation of emotion, at least in Western culture, generally works to control the (anticipated) unpleasant effects of negative emotions – such as with anger, fear, and sadness (Gross et al. 2006). Emotion regulation broadens the conception of emotion-focused coping as proposed by Lazarus (1993), which is very much focused on the process of minimizing or alleviating negative affects from a stressor.
However, negative emotions may also be regulated for social and other reasons. Fur-thermore, positive emotions may need regulation on occasion. For example, unreg-ulated temptation can get you into trouble, rejected, or accused of harassment.
Furthermore, though regulation is generally downwards, it can also be used to actu-ally increase emotion intensity, such as when we share good news and thus prolong the emotional effect (Langston 1994), or when bill collectors try to increase their anger in order to do a better job (Sutton 1991; cf. emotion work, Hochschild 1979).
Emotion regulation can also be used to sacrifi ce the short term for the long term, such as when we postpone gratifi cation.
Emotion regulation is diffi cult to defi ne as it depends on the defi nition of emotion and defi ning emotion is – as discussed in previous chapters – a challenge in and of itself. To complicate matters further, emotion regulation can be inter-preted to imply that emotions themselves are regulated or that emotions regulate something else (such as believability and memory). Gross (2008) defi nes these two forms as regulation of emotions and regulation by emotions, respectively. In this section, we will be looking at the fi rst defi nition as regulation of emotions connects to the notion of multileveled emotional experiences in response to media exposure.
Regulation by emotions will be discussed later.
Gross has defi ned fi ve different points in an emotion situation at which we can emotionally regulate. The fi rst is Situational Selection – where we try to emotionally regulate by infl uencing what situations we are exposed to. For example, we may avoid an emotion-arousing encounter by going elsewhere, but media use may also
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play an important role here. To what extent do we regulate our emotions by selec-tively exposing ourselves to, for example, a video game or horror? Mood manage-ment theory (Zillmann 1988; Oliver 1993) predicts that we selectively expose ourselves to media fare that enhances positive moods. However, is it not possible that we seek the confrontation in media to replace real-life situations? For example, to regulate our real-life anger by substituting it by playing a game aggressively? Or, to learn from it? For example, how to cope with sadness caused by a broken rela-tionship? A concept that Nabi, So, and Prestin (this volume) discuss for TV use. Or, perhaps, even to get prepared, just in case of not being able to avoid the real-life encounter, which is suggested by Knobloch-Westerwick and Alter (2006).
The second is Situational Modifi cation – where we attempt to infl uence the nature of the situation, so as to modify the emotional impact it has on us correspondingly.
We may, for instance, reduce the importance of particular situations such as an examination and feel less stressed. Related to media, this type of regulation comes in when we ‘see’ ketchup in the movie instead of ‘blood.’ Koriat et al. (1972) suc-cessfully employed such a procedure in having participants either focus on techni-cal aspects of the movie or empathize with the character, while they were watching a bloody accident.
The third technique to regulate our emotions is Attentional Deployment – which is where we focus our perception. We can, for example, distract ourselves if we want to down regulate an emotion, or we can ruminate if we want to up regulate an emotion. This technique is clearly illustrated with children covering their eyes or moving away from the screen in order to not see what upsets them (see Cantor, this volume). However, emotional expressions and emotion-arousing pictures in the media clearly draw our attention – whether we like it or not (Müller and Kappas, this volume). Research into differences between attentional deployment for posi-tively and negaposi-tively toned media is scarce.
The fourth regulation technique is Cognitive Change – where we reinterpret an emotion event in a way that makes it less emotionally loaded, through a joke about it, for instance. It changes the emotional intensity by altering one’s perspective.
Emotion-arousing events may be cognitively changed in advance or retrospectively (cf., deep acting and surface acting in emotion work, respectively, Grandey 2000).
This may well apply to the generally limited effects of fear appeals (Witte and Allen, 2000 for a review), where people may reinterpret how relevant the related risk is to them (for example, ‘my grandfather is ninety and he smokes’). Emotion regulation in terms of cognitive change may also apply to the concept of meta-emotions, as dis-cussed above, where we reinterpret the emotion that was initially aroused by some-thing in a movie, game, a news item, or other media exposure. For example: ‘The dying scene in Titanic made me cry, which shows how empathetic I am.’ Or:
‘Because I am competent and tough, the blood and gore in horror movies don’t make me feel sick.’ Clearly, cognitive change takes place when we attribute the label
‘not real’ or ‘this is plain fi ction’ to media fare that arouses us.
The fi fth emotion regulation technique is Response Modulation – which is focused on physiological, experiential, or behavioral responses directly. Thus, it might involve active emotion suppression. In daily life this occurs when one attributes one’s increased heart beat and trembling to having drunk too much coffee.
Response modulation during media exposure is almost constantly illustrated by behavior inhibition; action tendencies of emotions, such as the tendency to shout
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or reading a book. However, with playing video games, this may change (at least for some).
Apparently, people rely on different forms of emotion regulation. However, why they pick one or the other kind of regulation and how they connect to specifi c media use has not yet been studied enough to present conclusive results. An inter-esting idea, however, is that it might be due to the beliefs held by individuals who are regulating. People used different techniques depending on whether they thought emotions were malleable or fi xed. Those that thought that emotions were malleable were more likely to use cognitive change, as well as emotion regulation in general (Tamir et al. 2007). These fi ndings suggest a role for the media in emotion regulation with our beliefs about emotion regulation possibly being infl uenced by the media. For example, the media present examples and role models who use dif-ferent emotion regulation strategies, as well as beliefs about whether emotion regu-lation works. Furthermore, research has suggested that the media could also play a role training people’s emotion-regulation capacities, as older people are better at emotion regulation than young people (Scheibe and Blanchard-Fields 2009).
However, research also showed that older people might be more motivated to regu-late their emotions (Knight et al. 2007).
Often, the media may help us to learn how we may regulate our emotions, espe-cially today with both a more explicit focus on emotions in graphically rich media environments (e.g., on the world wide web, in video games, in news broadcasts) and a more explicit attention for emotional display and regulating our emotions in society. As Buck (1999) asserted, the media may play a signifi cant role in acquiring emotional competence. If true, this is especially important as research has demon-strated that people higher in emotional intelligence are more capable of learning from emotional setbacks and bounce back more quickly from negative events (Salovey et al. 1999). Thus, media may serve as a learning experience (Steen and Owens 2001). Entertainment media in particular offer an opportunity to safely engage in emotionally loaded situations – both positive and negative – which might well make us better, or at least think we are better, at coping with the real thing (cf., Nabi et al. this volume). The interactive nature of video games may further enhance media’s potential for acquiring skills for emotion regulation (Konijn and Nije Bijvank 2009; Ritterfeld 2009). How people acquire emotional competence and emotion regulation skills from media is largely underexplored.
A counter intuitive idea in current theorizing on emotion regulation is the idea that emotion regulation can happen automatically. Usually, we think of emotions as being automatic and regulation to be a conscious effort, but research has demon-strated that emotion regulation can be primed (Mauss, Cook, and Gross 2007). An experiment that lent further support to this idea was an individual difference study.
Participants that implicitly had a positive association with regulation became less angry when provoked, and they exhibited a more adaptive challenge response (Maus et al. 2006). This is also signifi cant for media use, because it means that lation can unconsciously be infl uenced with people just taking their emotion regu-lation cues from their (media) environment.
Although ego depletion is about self-regulation, which is not emotion regulation, the two concepts have some overlap. Ego depletion is the concept that individuals have something comparable to ‘will power,’ which – much like endurance – is a
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limited resource. Baumeister et al. (2007; a review) coin the analogy of a muscle, which can get worn out with overuse in the short run, but can get stronger with train-ing. Therefore, ego depletion may also play a role in emotion regulation related to media, which has already been shown in case of impulse buying (Vohs and Faber 2007), yet may also apply to other areas. Thus, media that are emotionally demand-ing and ask for emotion regulation from its audience might reduce their short-term emotion regulation, but help them train their regulationary ‘muscles.’
As said, emotion regulation generally pushes us away from negative emotions and toward positive emotions. Interestingly, research into positive emotions more or less matched the increased attention for emotion regulation. The urge for human beings to feel good (i.e., hedonistic motivations) is a universal, basic need of people (Frijda 1986) yet has largely been ignored by psychologists until recently.
Positive emotions
Traditional psychology – as well as many studies in mass media – mainly focused on negative emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear rather than on positive emo-tions, such as happiness, delight, and love (Fredrickson 1998). Among various reasons, a signifi cant one is that psychology has largely focused on solving problems and positive emotions are rarely a problem. Furthermore, Fredrickson and Branigan (2001) argue that it was hard for psychologists to fi gure out what has been the purpose or function of positive emotions.
Negative emotions could be understood as they focused the mind on something (usually some obstacle to be removed). For example, anger and fear focused the mind on something that was thwarting one’s goal, with the difference being that anger has a large amount of certainty while fear has a large amount of uncertainty (Smith and Ellsworth 1985). Positive emotions, on the other hand, seem to do no such thing, which is not too surprising since positive emotions are largely there to tell us that nothing is thwarting our goals (note that emotions are seen as motivat-ing goal-driven behavior). Instead they seem to imply the opposite; namely, that goals have been achieved, perhaps even earlier than expected, or there are rewards to gain.
As said, positive emotions were largely relegated to the sidelines until recently.
However, circumstances have changed. We now even have a ‘happiness professor’:
Martin Seligman is considered the father of positive psychology (Goldberg 2006).
In his view, positive psychology is a response to the systematic bias in psychology’s emphasis on mental illness rather than on psychological well-being. Positive psy-chology is the study of optimal human functioning. Likewise, Fredrickson (1998) came up with a new interpretation of positive emotions, suggesting that since posi-tive emotions seem to be provoked by the opposite of what provokes negaposi-tive emo-tions, perhaps they also do the opposite. Where negative emotions narrow attention down to one specifi c problem, positive emotions might instead broaden our atten-tion to take in more of the world around us (Fredrickson 1998). Recent research supported the ‘broaden and build’ effect of positive emotions. People have demon-strated greater creative thinking, better trouble solving abilities, more thoroughness in decision making, and improved critical thinking (for review see Isen 2008).
The question remained, however, what might positive emotions be good for?
And what is their evolutionary basis? Fredrickson reasoned that positive emotions
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 may serve to let us build up reserves – or a buffer – for when times become rough.
This should work in three ways. First, it allows people to build up the physical resources they might need in times of strain. Second, positive emotions might allow us to cultivate the social connections to give us the necessary help when times turn bad. And third, it might actually help us mentally, with research having demon-strated that more resilient people use positive emotions to bounce back from negative experiences (e.g., Tugade and Fredrickson 2004). This model is thus quite aptly called the ‘broaden and build’ model (for a review, see Fredrickson and Cohn 2008).
Clearly, such a ‘broaden and build’ perspective links together well with media use. Many people may use media to rebound from negative emotions more quickly, as well as help them build up a buffer to guard them when stress once again rises.
As such, we may enrich our theorizing on media enjoyment – we do not just enjoy media for leisure and being entertained as such, but rather we are engaged in serious efforts to restore our resources (cf. Nabi et al. this volume; also Oliver this volume). Yet, how can we restore our resources while confronting ourselves with the suffering of others? Social comparison theory (Suls and Wheeler 2000) suggests that the suffering of others might actually make us feel good in comparison, since it makes our own lives appear better. Recent studies from a media entertainment per-spective applied this perper-spective to viewers of Idols who enjoyed the ‘suffering others,’ which is called malicious pleasure or Schadenfreude (cf. Van Dijk et al. 2005).
However, whether they subsequently restored their resources is not yet known.
The idea that positive emotions help people to think more globally, retain more general information, and engage more actively with their environment provokes some interesting ideas about how to effectively spread certain messages. For example, research by Tamir and Robinson (2007) has demonstrated that one’s emotional state also determines what aspect of a message one focuses on, with people in a ‘bad’ emotional state being more likely to focus on threats and people in a positive emotional state being more likely to focus on rewards. This fi nding compares to an older study: Isen et al. (1978) demonstrated that memories are organized by affect. Therefore, the mood we were in when we stored information is stored together with the information and is thus more accessible when we are in a similar affective state. This suggests that media would do well to not just focus on what they are trying to tell, but also on what emotions they evoke while spreading a message.
They have actually been doing this, but ironically the focus on the ‘how’ has largely been toward negative emotions (as with warning labels and fear appeals), especially in the aftermath of 9/11 and the atmosphere of fear and anxiety that it engendered. The event of 9/11 and the following several-year-long media frenzy about terrorism exposed us to levels of fear and uncertainty that we had seen previ-ously during the cold war and the McCarthy period with one interesting difference;
namely, that this time we actually had a theory that offered us an explanatory basis for what was going on. This theory is named Terror Management Theory.
Terror Management Theory
Terror Management Theory (TMT) supposes that a large amount of human behav-ior is provoked by a paradox that each of us has to deal with every day (for a review,
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see Pyszczynski et al. 2003). This paradox is the confl ict between our love of life and our certainty that we will die. Pyszczynski et al. state that the internal confl ict would fi ll us with an incredible fear and we spend a great deal of our time managing this terror (hence the name). The way we manage this terror is by trying to become immortal, be it physically, spiritually or metaphorically. Or – more concretely – by living longer and having children; by following religious observa-tions and cultural practices; or by leaving behind something that lives on in our stead, such as our work or our ideas. In this way our desire for immortality helps create modern society.
TMT has really come into its own since the start of the war on terror. According to TMT, the attack raised American citizens’ awareness of their own mortality, which provoked a whole host of actions to control the anxiety it produced. For example, it caused a violent rejection and reaction toward out-groups, provoked shopping sprees, increased community cohesion and caused a huge upsurge in nationalism. A good indicator of the last was the sudden jump in American fl ags sold in the USA on the day of 9/11. Wal-Mart reportedly sold 116,000 fl ags on the day, while selling only 6,400 on that day a year earlier, which is almost a twenty-fold increase (Huntington 2004).
Ever since, many based their studies on TMT, also within a media context. For example, TMT has been applied to consumer behavior showing that people become more materialistic when death-related thoughts are triggered by ads or commercials (Arndt et al. 2004). Other TMT-related research has demonstrated that people primed with mortality reject abstract art that they feel has no meaning (Landau et al. 2006), are more negative toward negative essays and more positive about positive essays about their own country (Greenberg et al. 1994), and behave more greedily in a resource management game (Kasser and Sheldon 2000). In another media context, research showed that the abundant news reports on terror-ism and Muslims after 9/11 actually increased a negative attitude toward out-groups (Das et al. 2009).
It should be noted, however, that most studies thus far have used a priming para-digm and implicit association tests in experiments – thus we can only speculate about the long-term effects of media primes on mortality issues and TMT. Not all research agrees with the theory and people have suggested alternatives – such as coalition psychology, which tries to explain the same phenomenon as TMT, but from a more evolutionarily sound footing (Kirkpatrick and Navarrete 2006).
More importantly, perhaps it was not just the attack on the twin towers that caused this upsurge in people’s awareness of their own mortality, but also (or, espe-cially) the following worldwide media frenzy that resulted. If being in the vicinity of a funeral parlor already makes people’s mortality salient and triggers TMT (Greenberg et al. 1994), what effect would regular exposure to footage of war, death, natural disasters, and famine have? In other words, what is the impact of mass media’s daily news reports and politics that play on people’s fear? This is espe-cially signifi cant because most of the effects of making people’s mortality salient, due to the attention-narrowing effects of negative emotions such as fear, leads them to becoming less open minded, less accepting of dissenting opinions, and less accepting of out-group members. How then do we process media messages? Insights from recent neuropsychological research may increase our understanding of media’s impact.