Dying to Watch

Abstract

Research has shown that thoughts about death influence sexual cognitions and some media choices. The present study tested the hypothesis that thoughts about death may affect individuals’ tendency to select or avoid entertainment media programming containing sexual material. In two experiments, thoughts about death (mortality salience [MS]) were manipulated before college undergraduates expressed interest in viewing television shows and movies with varying amounts of sexual content. In both studies, MS was associated with greater overall interest in sexual media content. Although terror management theory would indicate that sexual worldview should moderate this effect, this was not observed to be the case. In addition, MS was not found to affect interest in other types of highly engaging media content including violent and dramatic content. Limitations regarding generalizability are discussed. Results suggest that MS increases a preference for sexual media content, and that this occurs for individuals with diverse sexual values systems. This is discussed in terms of implications for terror management theory and cognitive models of media influence.