Thesis
Everyday Sadism, Emotional Responses to Violent Images, and the Implications of Real and Fictionalized Violence
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2023
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006286
Abstract
Introduction: Everyday sadism is a trait that refers to experiencing pleasure from inflicting or witnessing the suffering or harm of others. Higher levels of everyday sadism are associated with more positive emotional responses to viewing violent images, playing violent video games, trolling, or watching combative/violent sports. However, none of the existing research has considered whether the perceived reality of violent images (i.e., images believed to be real or fake) moderates the association between everyday sadism and ratings of violent images. This study investigated whether the association between everyday sadism and positive ratings of violent images would be stronger when participants believed the images were real than when they believed they were fake. Method: Undergraduate college students (N = 235) accessed this study online and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: half of the participants were informed that the images they would view were real, while the other half were told that the images were fake. Participants controlled how long they viewed the images (3 or 10 seconds) and were asked to rate how pleasurable each image was, from 1 (very unpleasing) to 7 (very pleasing). Participants then completed self-report measures to assess everyday sadism. Results: Consistent with prior research, there was an association between everyday sadism and positive ratings of violent images. Contrary to the hypotheses, there were no effects of condition on the ratings of violent images, nor was there a significant interaction between everyday sadism and condition on the pleasure ratings of viewing violent images. Conclusions: These findings confirm previous research that higher levels of everyday sadism are positively associated with a preference to view violent images. However, this association does not appear to be influenced by the perceived reality of violent images.
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Details
- Title
- Everyday Sadism, Emotional Responses to Violent Images, and the Implications of Real and Fictionalized Violence
- Creators
- Keira Louise Monaghan
- Contributors
- David K Marcus (Advisor)Christopher T Barry (Committee Member)Walt Scott (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Psychology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 44
- Identifiers
- 99901086432501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis