Does Elevation Reduce Viewers’ Enjoyment of Media Violence?: Testing the Intervention Potential of Inspiring Media

Abstract

Media violence is often accompanied by moral disengagement cues that allow viewers to minimize the moral concerns that violence in real life typically evokes. What happens, however, when preceding media activate viewers’ moral emotions? Can the affective states associated with elevation decrease subsequent enjoyment of media violence? The current study examined these questions with a one-factor, between-subjects experiment that tested how prior exposure to eudaimonic media affects viewers’ violence enjoyment and prosocial attitudes. Feelings of meaningful affect elicited by eudaimonic media decreased viewers’ enjoyment of violent media and increased prosocial attitudes. Evidence for a boomerang effect through mixed affect and transportation was also found. The implications of these findings for media violence interventions and theory on enjoyment are discussed.