The Mediation of Personal Distress on Negative Television News and Donations

Previous research has shown that negative television news can lead to a reduction in positive affect (Harrell, 2000; Szabo & Hopkinson, 2007). What has yet to be investigated though is how negative television news influences an individual's interactions with others; precisely, how negative television news affects a person's empathy for persons in need and donation behaviors to help others. Participants were randomly assigned to four different conditions: local victim news condition, nonlocal victim news condition, far victim news condition, and a neutral media condition. Participants viewed media clips that corresponded with their condition and then filled out a questionnaire that examined implicit affect, empathy, and donation behavior. A series of models were conducted to analyze the data. A one-way between groups ANOVA showed that participants in the local victim news condition donated more money to a crime victim charity than participants in the nonlocal victim news condition, the far victim news condition, and the neutral media condition. The results of a MANOVA showed implicit positive affect, personal distress, and empathic concern to be significant process variables. These process variables were entered into the model as covariates with victim distance being the independent variable and donations being the dependent variable. The results suggested that personal distress may be mediating the relationship between local victim news and donations. One implication of this research that warrants further examination is the possibility that television news creates personal distress, ultimately precipitating an increase in donations to victims of crime.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Collins, Walt Beddingfield

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jeff Klibert
• William McIntosh

• ETD
• Personal distress
• Mediation
• Negative television news
• Television news
• Media
• New agencies
• Stress (Psychology)

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/445

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1445