The impact of children's coping style on emotional reactions to a frightening movie

Melissa Marie Spirek, Purdue University

Abstract

Mass media investigations with children have not integrated the important research on individual differences in coping with stress that is found in studies that have examined adult participants. The full scope of this limitation is apparent when one considers the more recent research that utilizes the distinction between monitoring and blunting to study adults' emotional reactions to frightening media (Sparks & Spirek, 1988; Sparks, 1989). This study is offered as a means of addressing this void by responding to the general question: Do children have characteristic tendencies toward monitoring and blunting that might affect the way they cope best with frightening mass media? The results of this investigation provides an affirmative response to this question. One research question and two hypotheses were confirmed. In the first study, the Children's Coping Measure (CCM) was developed in order to provide a reliable and valid measure of the monitoring verses blunting tendency among children. In the second study, the relationship between children's coping preferences and receiving varying amounts of information before viewing a frightening film was examined. Both self-report and physiological measures were employed. Implications and future research are discussed.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Sparks, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Mass media|Developmental psychology

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