Media Entertainment and Psychological Resilience – Introducing a Salutogenic Perspective on the Prospective Effects of Entertaining Media Use
Final Report Abstract
Entertaining media content such as movies or series are often used to achieve short-term positive effects for one’s well-being. The project focused on the question whether the use of media entertainment can also benefit the mental health and well-being of its users in the long-term. To introduce this health-promoting perspective on entertainment effects, we connected entertainment use to psychological resilience, i.e., the ability to withstand to stress and adversity. Two longitudinal studies with three different measurement intervals (daily, weekly, six months) and two different populations (students vs. the general population) showed positive effects of entertainment on resilience and mental health. Both hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment were positively associated with resilience factors such as hope, optimism and meaning making. Intra-individual differences were particularly evident in the daily and weekly time intervals, therefore going beyond individual usage episodes, but not at six-months intervals. However, there were also between-person correlations between entertainment and resilience factors in this longer time interval. Resilience factors further had positive effects on various indicators of mental health, e.g. increased affective well-being, reduced depressive symptoms, and contributed to an increased sense of meaning in life. The use of entertainment was also partly directly and partly indirectly associated with these indicators. Hedonic entertainment was beneficial in connection with affective well-being, whereas eudaimonic entertainment had a negative effect on affective well-being but was positively related to meaning in life as a eudaimonic indicator of well-being. The findings of the project emphasize the usefulness of a salutogenetic perspective on media entertainment and the importance of a long-term view on the effects of entertainment.
Publications
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The longitudinal influence of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment preferences on psychological resilience and wellbeing. Frontiers in Communication, 7.
Reinecke, Leonard & Kreling, Rebekka Johanna
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Making meaning through meaningful entertainment? Prospective effects of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment on meaning-focused coping. 73rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Toronto, Canada
Reinecke, L. & Kreling, R.
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What do people watch under adversity? Testing interactions of semantic affinity and coping style using Netflix data donations. 13th Conference of the Media Psychology Division of the German Psychological Society (DGPs), Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Kreling, R., Dietrich, F., Gilbert, A. & Reinecke, L.
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Entertainment contributes to adaptive coping: A longitudinal investigation of the interplay between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment, escapism, and meaning making. Center for Open Science.
Kreling, Rebekka & Reinecke, Leonard
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Entertainment contributes to adaptive coping: Results from a daily and weekly diary study on entertainment, escapism, and meaning making. 74th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Gold Coast, Australia
Kreling, R. & Reinecke, L.
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Entertainment fosters resilience: Investigating a coping and resilience perspective of entertainment selection and effects under everyday adversity with intensive longitudinal data. Center for Open Science.
Kreling, Rebekka & Reinecke, Leonard
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Meaning making through meaningful entertainment? An intensive longitudinal study on the prospective effects of entertainment use on meaning-coping. 69th Annual Conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK), Erfurt, Germany
Reinecke, L. & Kreling, R.
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What Do People Watch under Adversity? Testing Interactions of Semantic Affinity and Coping Style Using Netflix Data Donations. Center for Open Science.
Kreling, Rebekka; Dietrich, Felix; Gilbert, Alicia & Reinecke, Leonard
