Langley (1990) found that a moderate level of caffeine-induced arousal elevated violence-primed men's interest in films involving aggression, but that higher levels did not. The current investigation tested three possible explanations for this inverted-U pattern of effects of arousal and priming upon attraction to media violence. Male participants primed with an aggressive story-writing task expressed more interest in seeing violent films (from a number of film selections described in brief paragraphs) than did men primed by writing nonaggressive stories, an effect enhanced by moderate caffeine dosage (2 or 4 milligrams per kilogram of body weight) but not by a greater dosage (6 mg/kg). Aggressively primed participants also considered violent films to be more violent, an effect linearly enhanced by increasing arousal by caffeine administration. Results indicate that priming and arousal each enhanced salience of violent content, which increased the men's interest in the material except among those most highly aroused who were more motivated to avoid material that could be additionally arousing / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_25743 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Contributors | Langley, Travis Dale, Jr (Author), O'Neal, Edgar C (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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