The Influence of Context, Emotion, and Gender Stereotypes on the Realism of Media Stories

Social judgments about stories can influence perceived realism in complex ways. Earlier studies indicated that unexpected emotions are simply less real than expected emotions. There are several reasons to think the situation is not that simple. While the studies controlled for a number of variables, they may have over simplified emotional expression in stories. In addition, there appear to be different expectations about emotion for men and women and those expectations depend on the context. Using a complex multimessage design, this study examines the impact of emotion (anger, happiness), the response (over reaction/under reaction), the situation (achievement/interpersonal), the character’s sex, and the participant’s sex. The situation, the response, and the specific emotion had large, complex effects on perceived appropriateness and realism, but character sex and notions of sex role had less impact than expected. This study adds to a growing catalog of social judgments shown to influence perceptions of the realism of a story and to our understanding of the complex, multidimensional judgments people make about the realism of social interactions.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, TBA, San Francisco, CA, May 23, 2007
Year of Publication: 2007