Helping and Hurting on the TV Screen: Bounded Generalized Reciprocity and Interracial Group Expectations
Date
2022-02-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Media Psychology
Abstract
Two survey studies, one with a college sample (Study 1, n = 245) and one with a national U.S. adult sample (Study 2, n = 590) examined how media messages can influence attitudes toward Black people in the U.S. A novel contribution is the role of Bounded Generalized Reciprocity, or the belief that members of an outgroup are likely to return a favor (positive), or enact retribution for a wrong (negative) as a factor in the relationship between television use and attitudes. Study 1 (college student sample) found support for a relationship between lifetime television exposure and negative attitudes, mediated by negative reciprocity beliefs. Study 2 (U.S. adult sample) found support for an ambivalence effect, where lifetime television exposure was associated with increases in both positive and negative reciprocity beliefs. This indicates that reciprocity beliefs can be cultivated similarly to other kinds of beliefs (e.g., crime frequency, mean world), and that these beliefs have downstream relationships with racial attitudes. The direction in which they are influenced by television use remains an open question, and likely depends on TV content patterns over time.
Description
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Media Psychology on 02/01/2022, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/15213269.2022.2026228. This article will be embargoed until 08/01/2023.
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Citation
Lanier F. Holt, Morgan E. Ellithorpe, David R. Ewoldsen & John Velez (2022) Helping and Hurting on the TV Screen: Bounded Generalized Reciprocity and Interracial Group Expectations, Media Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/15213269.2022.2026228