Porn Consumption, Personality, and Attitudes Towards Sexual Violence

The aim of this working paper is to examine how the consumption of violent pornography leads to the development of attitudes towards sexual violence. Drawing from Gerbner’s cultivation theory, this paper proposes a micro-level analysis of the individual. Through the analysis of the theory, this paper investigates how the act of sexual violence is a learned social behavior, often facilitated through media sources such as pornography, and how it is reinforced in society through the normalization and constant performance of such practices. Further, this paper explores the moderating role of three personal dispositions: sub-clinical psychopathy, aggression, and social desirability.

Health, Technology, and Genre Preferences: A Preliminary Investigation

Cultivation theory assumes that frequent exposure to certain media can lead people to perceive the real world through the lens of their preferred media. This led to the research question of whether fans of science fiction who are accustomed to seeing problem solving based on science and technology are prone to accept science- and technology-based interventions to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. An exploratory survey and a preregistered experiment (N = 1,983) found that participants who liked science fiction were more likely to trust science and to accept protective measures against COVID-19. This effect was especially visible for a Corona mobile-phone app but also extended to other behaviors. The effect was stronger for those whose genre preference was activated just before the behavioral intentions were assessed. Harnessing these preferences could improve health communication and may be useful in solving health crises, such as pandemics or the climate crisis.

Broadcast Media Entertainment and Attitude Cultivation: A Study of Obscene Programme Viewership by College Students

This study examined broadcast media entertainment and attitude cultivation, a study of behavioural patterns of College Students. It is a survey designs study that investigated undergraduate communication students of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State and Moshood Abiola Polytechnics, Ogun State. Systematic random sampling was adopted to select a sample size of three hundred (300) communication students of the two institutions as respondents for this study. Programmes such as films, soap operas and musicals, etcetera were units considered. The theoretical framework is premised on the cultivation theory and gratification theory. Its analysis was hinged on the simple percentage statistical calculation. The study outcome showed that youth crave satisfaction in the entertainment programmes they watch and that entertainment programmes like musical videos, foreign and local drama do portray obscenity which brings about delinquent behaviour in the younger generation. It was recommended that producers and directors of entertainment products should be conscious of young people who form the chunk of their audience to eliminate obscenity in programme production, while parents should control the level of media exposure of their wards

Cultivation theory: The impact of crime media's portrayal of race on the desire to become a U.S. police officer

The death of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 again left people asking why U.S. police officers so commonly resort to the use of deadly force when interacting with Black individuals. The current article proposes that media, combined with cultivation theory and social cognition concepts may create implicit biases that are potential contributors to this problem. Police officers have a greater vulnerability to these biases because intake of crime-related media positively predicts their interest in selecting law enforcement as a career. Other predictors of an interest in working in law enforcement, and implications of these findings, are discussed.

Adolescents’ Modern Media Use and Beliefs About Masculine Gender Roles and Norms

In the current study, cultivation theory is used to examine associations among amount of time spent with television (including Netflix or other streaming services), video games, and YouTube and beliefs about masculine roles and norms within a diverse sample of 307 13- to 18-year-olds from the United States. Heavy users of television, video games, and YouTube outscored lighter users on endorsement of views of masculinity that favor emotional detachment, dominance, toughness, and/or avoidance of femininity among boys and girls in the sample. For boys only, heavy exposure to violence in favorite games also played a role.

Portrayal of Women in Contemporary Nollywood Films: Isoken and King of Boys in Focus

This study investigates the portrayal of women in contemporary Nollywood films, using Isoken (2017) and King of Boys (2018) as case studies. The objective was to highlight the various ways in which women in the films are portrayed to viewers and ascertain whether contemporary Nollywood movies are an improvement on the issues of gender stereotypes and sexism which are hitherto prevalent in the industry. Anchored on the cultivation theory, the study adopted the qualitative content analysis method. Findings showed that women in the studied films are negatively portrayed in various ways and that these portrayals are, at best, parallel to the stereotypical ways in which women were portrayed in previous Nollywood movies. Taking cognizance of the fact that both films are directed by women, the researcher recommends that Nollywood female directors should look beyond the lenses of financial gains and set a pace with regards to changing the narrative and portraying Nigerian women in a positive light.

The “One Mind, Two Aspects” Model of the Self: The Self Model and Self-Cultivation Theory of Chinese Buddhism

Constructing a self model with universal cultural adaptability is a common concern of cultural psychologists. These models can be divided into two types: one is the self model based on Western culture, represented by the self theory of Marsh, Cooley, Fitts, etc.; the other is the non-self model based on Eastern culture, represented by the Mandela model of Hwang Kwang Kuo and the Taiji model of Zhen Dong Wang. However, these models do not fully explain the self structure and development of Chinese people in the context of Chinese Buddhist culture. Based on the self theory of Chinese Buddhism and inspired by the famous Buddhist work Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, this article constructs the “one mind, two aspects” self model. This model not only can properly represent the self structure of Chinese people in the context of Chinese Buddhism but also can explain the self-cultivation process and the realm of practice of Chinese Buddhist believers and thus has satisfactory cultural validity.