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Sexual and Violent Media's Inhibition of Advertisement Memory: Effect or Artifact? 1
Author(s) -
Fried Carrie B.,
Johanson John C.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00366.x
Subject(s) - psychology , affect (linguistics) , interpretation (philosophy) , advertising , content (measure theory) , artifact (error) , social psychology , sexual assault , plot (graphics) , poison control , suicide prevention , communication , computer science , medicine , mathematical analysis , statistics , mathematics , environmental health , neuroscience , business , programming language
Research (Bushman, 2005; Bushman & Bonacci, 2002) has claimed to demonstrate that sexual and violent content in television programs inhibits viewers' memory for advertisements. However, that research failed to adequately control other aspects of the programs' content, making interpretation problematic. The present paper attempts to correct these flaws. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that if other aspects of show content are held constant, sex and violence alone do not affect memory for advertisements. Study 3 provides evidence that while sex or violence does not affect memory, other aspects of program content (e.g., plot, humor) do have a significant influence on advertisement memory. Implications of this research on the interpretation of previous research are discussed.