Psychology of Popular Media

Article	Citations
Supplemental Material for The Effect of Short-Form Video Usage on Self-Expansion	46
Qualitative and quantitative investigations of Office fans’ connections with fictional and celebrity couples: Identification, parasocial relationships, and beyond.	39
The psychology of likes: Relevance of feedback on Instagram and relationship to self-esteem and social status.	37
Random app of kindness: Evaluating the potential of a smartphone intervention to impact adolescents’ empathy, prosocial behavior, and aggression.	34
Me, myself, and my avatar: Self-discrepancy, embodiment, and narrative involvement in gaming experiences.	33
What does the Cat in the Hat know about that? An analysis of the educational and unrealistic content of children’s narrative science media.	28
Supplemental Material for Subtle Threat Cues in Marketing Horror and Children’s Entertainment	27
Supplemental Material for “To Be Yourself or Your Selfies, That Is the Question”: The Moderation Role of Gender, Nationality, and Privacy Settings in the Relationship Between Selfie-Engagement and Bod	26
Supplemental Material for Postexposure Engagement With More and Less Eudaimonic Films: 10-Year Patterns of Response and the Role of Parasocial Relationship and Retrospective Imaginative Involvement	23
Supplemental Material for Other-Focus Versus Self-Focus: The Power of Self-Transcendent TV Shows	23
Can the social network bridge social distancing? Social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic.	22
From online to offline: Pathways from active social media use to proenvironmental behaviors through the lens of construal level theory.	21
Social media usage is associated with lower knowledge about anxiety and indiscriminate use of anxiety coping strategies.	19
“Using Comics and tweets to raise awareness about gender biases in STEM.” Correction to Freedman, Green, Kaufman, and Flanagan (2022).	18
The portrayal of mental illness in popular children's programs on Netflix: A content and thematic analysis.	17
Black lives matter, Black stories matter, Black voices matter: Black Lives Matter protests, COVID-19, and streaming services.	17
Looking to the stars: Validating the existence of para-couple relationships among emerging adults.	13
A moderated mediation model of the relationship between passive social network usages and life satisfaction.	13
Rating heroes, antiheroes, and villains: Machiavellianism, grandiose narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism predict admiration for and perceived similarity to morally questionable characters.	13
The “ideal” body according to artificial intelligence: Body image implications for athletes and nonathletes.	12
The effects of awe-inspiring nature videos on connectedness to nature and proenvironmental intentions.	12
Supplemental Material for Rage in Video Gaming, Characteristics of Loss of Control Among Gamers: A Qualitative Study	11
Supplemental Material for Developing and Testing an Explanatory Model of Complete Mental Health in Tabletop Role-Playing Games	11
Supplemental Material for Physiological Stress Responses to Mental Illness Narratives	11
Testing the direct and indirect relationship between media violence exposure and cyberbullying perpetration.	11

Dark personality traits and anger in cyber aggression perpetration: Is moral disengagement to blame?	11
Reviewer Acknowledgments 2025	11
Supplemental Material for Perceptions of Fake News, Misinformation, and Disinformation Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Exploration	10
It's a “pattern” of time: Exploring flow experience in autonomous sensory meridian response videos.	10
The effects of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) on modality, mood, and mindfulness (3Ms).	10
Reviewer Acknowledgments 2024	10
Time for digital media but no time for school? An investigation of displacement effects among adolescents of gen X, Y, and Z.	10
Supplemental Material for Queer on TV: Using the Minority Stress Model to Explore the Role of LGBQ+ Television Exposure in LGBQ+ Audiences’ Psychological Well-Being and Identity Status	10
Achieving the ideal-self while harming my relationship: Examining associations between self-discrepancy, instagram photo manipulation, and romantic relationship outcomes.	9
#Instabod versus #BoPo: An experimental study of the effects of viewing idealized versus body-positive content on collegiate males’ and females’ body satisfaction.	9
Losing parasocial friendships over celebrity politics: A cognitive discrepancies approach.	9
"The fairest of them all: Representations of bodies across Disney animated films from 1937 to 2019": Correction.	9
Who stans celebrities on social media? The role of gender, sexual orientation, and political ideology.	9
Effects of self-objectification on viewers’ narrative engagement.	9
Media prescriptions for goal achievement: The differential effect of inspiring versus humorous content.	9
Supplemental Material for Rating Heroes, Antiheroes, and Villains: Machiavellianism, Grandiose Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Sadism Predict Admiration for and Perceived Similarity to Morally Questionab	9
Shared screens: Scripted television's communal space in a polarized nation.	9
The associations between parents’ technoference, their problematic use of digital technology, and the psychological state of their children.	8
What is in a hashtag? A comparative content analysis of fitspiration, body positivity, and body neutrality posts on Instagram.	8
Keep your head in the game: Retrospective imaginative involvement with video game narratives.	8
That’s not supposed to happen! Spoilers’ impact on experience of narratives with (un)expected endings.	8
Connecting the pro-recovery eating disorder community: An analysis of the language on science, Twitter, and Reddit.	8
Supplemental Material for Social Media Addiction Moderates Links Between Perceptions of Freedom and Mental Health in the United States and Germany	8
Inspiration for perspiration? Two experiments testing the psychological effects of fitspiration.	8
The effects of memes on perceptions and decision making: Insights from fuzzy-trace theory.	7
Children’s vocabulary, math, and social-emotional learning from interactive media: The role of choice, agency, and repetition in app design.	7
SPACE to esc: Affective and motivational correlates to adaptive and maladaptive escapism among video gamers—A network analysis.	7
Supplemental Material for How Anthropomorphic Animal Representations in Nature Documentaries Are Related to Entertainment Experience and Persuasive Effects	7
Directional is the new null? A comment on Bushman and Anderson (2021).	6
Women’s exposure to sexualized TV, self-objectification, and consideration of cosmetic surgery: The role of age.	6
Supplemental Material for The Costs of Sexualization: Examining Viewers’ Perceptions of Sexualized Profile Owners in Online Dating	6
The green side of parasocial romantic relationships: An exploratory investigation of parasocial jealousy.	6
Queer folklore: Examining the influence of fandom on sexual identity development and fluidity acceptance among Taylor Swift fans.	6
Supplemental Material for Female-Oriented Dating Sims in China: Players’ Parasocial Relationships, Gender Attitudes, and Romantic Beliefs	6
Comparison of listening experiences by podcast styles: Monologue versus dialogue.	6
Stuck in the DMs: The association between introversion/extraversion and self-confidence through text-based communication.	6
Supplemental Material for Personality Perception in Game of Thrones: Character Consensus and Assumed Similarity	6
Supplemental Material for Investigating the Effect of Full and Partial Social Media Abstinence on Fear of Missing Out and Well-Being Outcomes: A Daily Diary Experimental Approach	6
Supplemental Material for Can We Separate the Character From the Creator? An Exploratory Study on Parasocial Relationships	6
Solving the puzzle of null violent media effects.	6
Being asked to dance: Evidence of racial bias in audience voting behavior on the television show Strictly Come Dancing.	6
Social media use and body image concerns for midlife and older women.	6
“I see dead people”: Exploring the associations between watching horror and belief in the paranormal.	6
Parenting and tweens’ media use during the COVID-19 pandemic.	6
Time travels on Instagram: A longitudinal investigation of parasocial interaction with a historical person and the impact on followers’ morality.	5
Supplemental Material for Strange New Worlds: Social Content in Popular Star Trek Fanfiction Versus Commercial Novels	5
Supplemental Material for Maternal Technology Distraction and Its Associations With Stress and Parenting During the COVID-19 Pandemic	5
Measurement and correlates of celebrity culture hate.	5
Self-simming while Black: Examining a petition to improve black representation in Sims 4.	5
Judging characters by their cover? Surface-level similarities, deep-level similarities, and parasocial relationships.	5

Exploring the motives for watching horror movies: A replication and extension.	5
Exploring identity and coping among Black viewers of Marvel’s Black Panther.	5
Supplemental Material for Qualitative and Quantitative Investigations of Office Fans’ Connections With Fictional and Celebrity Couples: Identification, Parasocial Relationships, and Beyond	5
Recognizing the similarities and appreciating the differences? Content choices and perceived (dis)similarity with TV show characters among youth.	5
A content analysis method for coding movie content using movie trailers.	5
Exploring the association between Twitch use and well-being.	4
Spoilers ahead, proceed with caution: How engagement, enjoyment, and FoMO predict avoidance of spoilers.	4
Pressure, preoccupation, and porn: The relationship between internet pornography, gendered attitudes, and sexual coercion in young adults.	4
A cognitive behavioral therapy-based microintervention to reduce the negative impact of Instagram use on well-being: A randomized controlled trial.	4
Wine mom culture: Investigating social media influence on mothers’ alcohol norms.	4
Supplemental Material for Amplify or Suppress the Inspiration? Comment Valence Influences the Reception of Inspirational COVID-19 Videos	4
The woman in the (rearview) mirror: Viewers’ attitudes toward objectified car selfies of Black and White women.	4
Correction to “limiting social media use decreases depression, anxiety, and fear of missing out in youth with emotional distress: A randomized controlled trial” by Davis and Goldfield (2024).	4
Ideology and gender essentialism: Rethinking attitudes toward the movie Barbie beyond simple gender perspectives.	4
Select your character: Individual needs and avatar choice.	4
Linking adolescents’ exposure to and identification with reality TV to materialism, narcissism, and entitlement.	4
Media versus meditation: A comparison of the stress-relieving benefits of multiple media experiences.	4
Supplemental Material for Self-Compassion and Women's Experience of Social Media Content Portraying Body Positivity and Appearance Ideals	4
Why lurk, why join, and why post? The uses and gratifications of lurkers, infrequent posters, and frequent posters in the brand community context.	4
Navigating the social landscape of Instagram: Exploring the experiences, motivations, and perceptions of eating disorder recovery content creators.	4
Young love on the big screen: A content analysis of romantic ideals, challenges, hookups, and long-term relationships in teen romantic drama movies.	4
Better than scrolling: Digital detox in the search for the ideal self.	4
Uses of media representation in LGBTQ adults’ relationship with their parent: Individual, relational, and sociocultural contexts.	4
Character immersion in video games as a form of acting.	4
Supplemental Material for Content of Social Media Fitspiration and Its Effect on Physical Activity-Related Behavior: A Systematic Review	4
Supplemental Material for The Portrayal of Mental Illness in Popular Children's Programs on Netflix: A Content and Thematic Analysis	3
Supplemental Material for Interventions to Reduce the Negative Impact of Online Highly Visual Social Networking Site Use on Mental Health Outcomes: A Scoping Review	3
Straw men, bogus claims, and misinformation about media violence: Reply to comment by Devilly et al. (2023).	3
Fitspiration, related risks, and coping strategies: Recent trends and future directions.	3
Supplemental Material for Problematic Social Media Use Increases With Fear of Missing Out Among Young Adults: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study	3
Problematic video gaming is associated with poor sleep quality, diet quality, and personal hygiene.	3
Belongingness needs mediate the link between attachment anxiety and parasocial relationship strength.	3
Mood repair following eudaimonic media selection.	3
Supplemental Material for Romantic Ideas and Ideals in Popular Music: A Content Analysis of the Taylor Swift Musical Catalog	3
Consuming memes during the COVID pandemic: Effects of memes and meme type on COVID-related stress and coping efficacy.	3
Who finds media violence funny? Testing the effects of media violence exposure and dark personality traits.	3
Enhancing brand equity through branded content experience on social media: Developing and testing a moderated mediation model.	3
Erratum to “The effect of TikTok body neutrality content on young women’s self-compassion” by Seekis and Lawrence (2024).	3
Empathy, narcissism, alexithymia, and social media use.	3
The “ideal versus real” social media posts increase female adults’ body appreciation.	3
Unfulfilled romantic needs: Effects of relationship status, presence of romantic partners, and relationship satisfaction on romantic parasocial phenomena.	3
An examination of viewers’ mental model drawings after they watched a transgender-themed TV narrative.	3
Adolescents’ perceptions of nicotine vaping-related social media content.	3
Interventions to reduce the negative impact of online highly visual social networking site use on mental health outcomes: A scoping review.	3
Examining the postpartum period through social media: A content and thematic analysis of #postpartum Instagram posts.	3
The impact of spatiotemporal and sociocultural Heimat associations in entertaining television programs on social identity, positive affect, and intergroup relations.	3
Subtle threat cues in marketing horror and children’s entertainment.	3
Social networking sites use exacerbates appearance anxiety in young Chinese women: The moderating role of self-concept clarity.	3
“His fight or flight kicked in and here we are”: Investigating the construction of a perpetrator within a dark fandom.	3
Supplemental Material for One Fit(Spiration) for All? Gender Differences in Body Satisfaction	3
Supplemental Material for Problematic Video Gaming Is Associated With Poor Sleep Quality, Diet Quality, and Personal Hygiene	2
How anthropomorphic animal representations in nature documentaries are related to entertainment experience and persuasive effects.	2
Activism through fandom for the Black Lives Matter movement.	2
Supplemental Material for Unraveling the Links Between Maternal and Paternal Parenting Practices and Adolescent Problematic Gaming: The Mediating Role of Satisfaction and Frustration of Psychological	2
Intellectual television harms relaxation, games help us detach? Different attributes of bedtime media are associated with multiple types of recovery.	2
Is it painful? Playing violent video games affects brain responses to painful pictures: An event-related potential study.	2
Exploring the impact of work from home on the effects of social media: A moderated mediation analysis of psychological well-being.	2
Patterns of child and adolescent digital media use: Associations with school support, engagement, and cybervictimization.	2
The effect of TikTok body neutrality content on young women’s self-compassion.	2
Perceptions of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation amid the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative exploration.	2
That’s disgusting! Why disgust increases enjoyment of crime dramas.	2
Intergroup contact with a virtual refugee: Reducing prejudice through a cooperative game.	2
The role of different screen media devices, child dysregulation, and parent screen media use in children’s self-regulation.	2
Sexism and racism negatively predict preference for diverse characters in Star Wars fans.	2
“Makes me feel like I was born in the wrong era”: Gamer self-efficacy and appreciation, rather than controller type, correlate with historical nostalgia when playing a retrogame.	2
Artificial intelligence storytellers: Audience enjoyment and appreciation of ChatGPT-adapted narratives.	2
Sensing the media character: The experience of parasocial interaction, but not identification, as a real physical occurrence.	2
Understanding social media appearance preoccupation: The role of body image emotions.	2
The effect of types of language mistakes on the persuasiveness of user-generated content on Facebook.	2
Associations between intentions for affective social media content choices and depressive symptoms in adolescence: A cross-sectional investigation of media response styles as moderators.	2
The impacts of cinematic portrayal of human virtues.	2
Inspired to mask up: The effect of uplifting media messages on attitudes about wearing face masks among Democrats and Republicans.	2
From filters to body positivity: Opposing social media messages and adolescent body image.	2
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: Simultaneously examining the association between three social networking sites and relationship stress and satisfaction.	2
Supplemental Material for Keep Your Head in the Game: Retrospective Imaginative Involvement With Video Game Narratives	2
Supplemental Material for The Effect of Types of Language Mistakes on the Persuasiveness of User-Generated Content on Facebook	2
A continuous-space description of video games: A preliminary investigation.	2
Supplemental Material for Writing and Reading Fan Fiction: The Roles of Self and Social Media	2
Supplemental Material for “But They Don’t Look Like Someone With an Eating Disorder”: A Content Analysis of Representation in TV and Film Portrayals of Characters With Eating Disorders	2
Fear of missing out and compulsive social media use as mediators between OCD symptoms and social media fatigue.	2

Supplemental Material for Tension in Attention: Hypervigilance Helps Explain Why Marginalization Leads to Doomscrolling	1
Supplemental Material for Time Travels on Instagram: A Longitudinal Investigation of Parasocial Interaction With a Historical Person and the Impact on Followers’ Morality	1
Self-compassion and women's experience of social media content portraying body positivity and appearance ideals.	1
Into the purple ocean: The formation and dynamics of a transcultural fandom as a result of cultural diffusion through K-pop.	1
Black college students navigating digital environments: A qualitative analysis of peer racial socialization.	1
Supplemental Material for The Role of Cliffhangers in Serial Entertainment: An Experiment on Cliffhangers’ Effects on Enjoyment, Arousal, and Intention to Continue Watching	1
Motivational underpinnings of social media use.	1
Using narrative media to satisfy intrinsic needs: Connecting parasocial relationships, retrospective imaginative involvement, and self-determination theory.	1
Antecedents and consequences of smartphone self-extension.	1
Female-oriented dating sims in China: Players’ parasocial relationships, gender attitudes, and romantic beliefs.	1
#Grab, #touch, #drink: A content analysis of college party culture in Instagram fraternity pictures.	1
The impact of RuPaul’s Drag Race on cisgender, heterosexual individuals’ understanding of LGBTQ+ experiences.	1
Supplemental Material for Exploring How Message and Situational Factors Shape People’s Information Processing and Belief in Fake News on Social Media: The Moderating Role of Status-Seeking Motivation	1
Are fatigued users fleeing social media? A three-level meta-analysis on the association between social media fatigue and social media use.	1
Supplemental Material for Understanding the Attraction to Music Containing Violent Themes: A Qualitative Analysis	1
I love you, but I have got to cancel you: Psychological consequences of participation in cancel culture.	1
Problematic social media use increases with fear of missing out among young adults: A three-wave longitudinal study.	1
That bygone feeling: Controller ergonomics and nostalgia in video game play.	1
Supplemental Material for Understanding Social Media Appearance Preoccupation: The Role of Body Image Emotions	1
Supplemental Material for Media Multitasking, Interference Management Under Uncertainty, and Fluid Intelligence: Indicators of Performance and Flexibility Under Chosen Versus Forced Task Interference	1
Longitudinal dynamics of self-presentation in face-to-face and messenger-based communication.	1
Upward social comparisons and suicidal ideation on Facebook: Moderating role of thwarted belongingness.	1
Social connection, social exploration, social and platform constraints: The construction and validation of a social media user perception scale.	1
Supplemental Material for Identification With Characters in Parasocial Relationships Predicts Sharing Their Personality Traits	1
Personality perception in Game of Thrones: Character consensus and assumed similarity.	1
Amplify or suppress the inspiration? Comment valence influences the reception of inspirational COVID-19 videos.	1
Understanding the relations among being a cyber victim, willingness to tell a friend about being a cyber victim, and peer social competence for Chinese children.	1
Exercising empowerment: Mediated fitness technology fostered social connections and personal growth during social isolation.	1
Supplemental Material for Select Your Character: Individual Needs and Avatar Choice	1
Supplemental Material for “Makes Me Feel Like I Was Born in the Wrong Era”: Gamer Self-Efficacy and Appreciation, Rather Than Controller Type, Correlate With Historical Nostalgia When Playing a Retrog	1
The prosocial and cathartic potential of immersive media on eudaimonic entertainment experiences.	1
Looking through a filtered lens: Negative social comparison on social media and suicidal ideation among young adults.	1
Supplemental Material for The Expansion of the Chūnibyō Experience in Thailand	1
Women in fandom: Participation patterns and perceived authenticity.	1
Supplemental Material for Who Stans Celebrities on Social Media? The Role of Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Political Ideology	1
Big data, actually: Examining systematic messaging in 188 romantic comedies using unsupervised machine learning.	1
Playing with privilege: Examining demographics in choosing player-characters in video games.	1
Preference for violent video games: The role of emotion regulation, alexithymia, affect intensity, and sensation seeking in a population of French video gamers.	1
Love, desire, and problematic behaviors: Exploring young adults’ smartphone use from a uses and gratifications perspective.	1
“I expect it as part of the kind of package deal when you sign up to these things”—Motivations and experiences of ghosting.	1
Binge-watching in times of COVID-19: A longitudinal examination of changes in affect and TV series consumption patterns during lockdown.	1
Crime in your area: Use of neighborhood apps is associated with inaccurate perceptions of higher local crime rates.	1
Examining engagement and self-referencing across the duration of narrative processing.	1
Social media reduction or abstinence interventions are providing mental health benefits—Reanalysis of a published meta-analysis.	1
Supplemental Material for The Impact of Acute and Cumulative Exposure to Violent Film on Social Cognition in University Students	1
Exploring how message and situational factors shape people’s information processing and belief in fake news on social media: The moderating role of status-seeking motivation.	1
Living for the likes: Social media use, fear of missing out, and body and life satisfaction in women.	1
The effects of daily Instagram use on state self-objectification, well-being, and mood for young women.	1
Further tests of the media violence–aggression link: Replication and extension of the 7 Nations Project with multiple Latinx samples.	1