Media Entertainment and Psychological Resilience – Introducing a Salutogenic Perspective on the Prospective Effects of Entertaining Media Use

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Leonard Reinecke
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 450647975

A growing number of studies provide empirical evidence of the positive short-term effects of exposure to media entertainment on psychological well-being, for example through processes of mood management or recovery from stress and strain. What remains largely unclear, however, is whether media entertainment is also associated with more stable prospective gains in psychological health. To address this open question, the proposed project aims at introducing a salutogenic perspective on the longitudinal effects of exposure to media entertainment. For this purpose, the project theoretically integrates recent two-factor models of entertainment experience with theoretical models of psychological resilience. The resulting theory synthesis suggests that exposure to hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment may provide both opportunities and risks for the acquisition, cultivation, and reinforcement of different resiliency factors, such as person-level optimism and hope. These resiliency factors, in turn, are anticipated to act as mediators of potential prospective effects of media entertainment on well-being. The proposed work program aims at two central goals. First, based on the theoretical synthesis conducted in preparation of the funding proposal, an extended theoretical model of the proposed connections between media entertainment and psychological resilience will be developed. Second, the reciprocal effects of entertaining media use, resiliency factors, and psychological health and well-being will be empirically tested in two longitudinal studies. Study 1 will provide a first test of these effects in a longitudinal survey study based on an online access panel representatively stratified with regard to region, age (18-65 years), gender, and educational level of the general population in Germany. The study will comprise three waves of data collection with a 6-month interval. The results of Study 1 will be complemented by Study 2 based on a longitudinal diary study in a cohort of university students in their first semester. Study 2 follows a measurement burst design and combines weekly reports with three weeks of daily diary assessment over the course of the semester. In combination, Study 1 and Study 2 will provide a detailed picture of the interplay of entertainment media use, resilience, and well-being over varying timeframes and analytical levels. While Study 1 addresses the longitudinal between-person effects of media exposure on resilience, the high number of assessments and the nested structure of the data collected in Study 2 allows for the exploration of the within-person relationship of the relevant variables. Beyond their high societal relevance, we believe that the results of the proposed project will make important contributions to the fields of entertainment and media effects research by extending our insights into the central mechanism connecting media entertainment and psychological health and well-being.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants