Beyond Cultivation: Exploring the Effects of Frequency, Recency, and Vivid Autobiographical Memories for Violent Media

Abstract

Using Shrum's (1996) heuristic processing model as an explanatory mechanism, we propose that people who hold vivid autobiographical memories for a specific past experience with media violence will overstate the prevalence of real-world crime versus individuals without vivid memories. We also explore the effects of frequency and recency on social reality beliefs. A survey was administered to 207 undergraduate students who were asked to recall one violent television program or movie seen in the past. Participants were asked to write essays describing the violence, which were coded for vividness. Results support not only cultivation theory, but also the effects of memory vividness: participants with more vivid memories of blood and gore gave higher prevalence estimates of real-world crime and violence than participants with less vivid memories. Findings also suggest that females had more vivid memories for prior media violence than males. Implications for cultivation, the heuristic processing model, and vividness research are discussed.

Notes

Note. *p < .05

**p < .01.

^p < .10.

*p ≤ .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

1. Whereas the heuristic processing model addresses the level of vividness in people's memories for mediated experiences, other researchers use the term “vividness” to refer to content. These researchers typically cite Nisbett and Ross (1980), who defined the term “vividness” as information presented in a format that is “(a) emotionally interesting, (b) concrete and imagery-provoking, and (c) proximate in a sensory, temporal, or spatial way” (p. 45). Researchers exploring “vividness effects” tend to use the Nisbett and Ross definition to vary the level of vividness in content shown to research participants for persuasion purposes. Thus, there have been a variety of operationalizations of vividness, ranging from the inclusion of photographs to the use of colorful, concrete language. An extensive review of the vividness effects literature (Tayor & Thompson, 1982), however, revealed no consistent benefits of vivid content, although more recent research suggests vivid content is persuasive under certain conditions (e.g., Keller & Block, 1997). Although the vividness effects literature is related to the present study, we are not measuring—and are making no claims about—the level of vividness in media content viewed by participants. Rather, we are exploring the level of vividness in people's memories for media seen it the past (which, of course, is possibly the result of vivid content).

2. Both regression models have a few cases of missing data, primarily caused by individuals who did not fill out the last page of the survey, which included demographic information such as gender and ethnicity. The first regression model, therefore, reflects a total sample of n = 202, rather than the full sample of 207 participants. The second model reflects a total sample of n = 151, rather than all 155 individuals who could remember a prior case of violent media.