Karen E Dill-Shackleford

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Verified

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• Ph.D. Social Psych-U of MO-Col
• Faculty Member at Fielding Graduate University

Body dissatisfaction is a major source of suffering among women of all ages. One potential factor that could mitigate body dissatisfaction is self-compassion, a construct that is garnering increasing research attention due to its strong association with psychological health. This study investigated whether a brief 3-week period of self-compassion m...

How Fantasy Becomes Reality Information and Entertainment Media in Everyday Life, Revised and Expanded Karen E. Dill-Shackleford • Research-based approach delivered in a conversational tone. • Addresses how we make meaning from fiction, an emerging area of psychological study. • Takes a broad look at the media landscape, including video games, movi...

Fan fiction has received minimal attention from psychological researchers. In order to begin to fill that gap, this study analyzed fan fiction about the television show Mad Men to investigate how fans use fan fiction to make meaning from the source text. A sample of fan fiction stories was coded for the presence of eudaimonic and hedonic story comp...

This article is in press at the Journal of Health Communication Abstract Research has demonstrated the ability of fictional narratives to educate about social and health issues. Although some entertainment-education efforts have used live theater as a mechanism for social change, very few use social science methods to demonstrate exposure effects....

Video game characters are icons in youth popular culture, but research on their role in gender socialization is rare. A content analysis of images of video game characters from top-selling American gaming magazines showed male characters (83%) are more likely than female characters (62%) to be portrayed as aggressive. Female characters are more lik...

Media afford audiences opportunities to develop nonreciprocal, socioemotional bonds with fictional characters and celebrities called parasocial relationships. Audiences’ parasocial relationships may feel like friendships, but they may also take the form of romantic attachments. The parasocial relationships that children and teens develop with their...

Various issues in measurement of concepts related to audience research, e.g. parasocial theory, identification, and related concepts.

Americans reported an increase in stress during the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Virtual reality (VR) apps have been shown to distract users from stressors in the environment, but little is known about the efficacy of specific content features to reduce stress or improve mood for consumer users during a pandemic. The present study inv...

Changes in higher education and the pandemic are two influences on a shift from face-to-face to technological methods of conducting research. This presentation focuses on the use of technology in the research lab and the lessons learned from experience.

We propose a model of Vicarious Social Connection to organize the field of study commonly known as parasocial research. Whereas the study of parasocial or one-sided relationships is among the most common approaches in the field, audience connections with media figures (e.g., fictional characters, media personalities) may be construed in a variety o...

Real Characters explores the unique relationship between viewers and fictional characters in TV, film and social media. Edited by Dr. Karen Shackleford, the book showcases the research of leading scholars and practitioners who understand what fictional characters mean to us from a psychological perspective. As a result of the pandemic, many people...

In this chapter, take a trip through the lens of one of your favorite media characters, noting the various perspectives you experience there. Explore some of the key scientific terms in the study of audience connections with characters. Learn how scholars have repeatedly called for the need to clarify and disambiguate these key terms. Note that the...

Rape is a startlingly prevalent reality for many women. It is supported and excused by rape myths that blame or disbelieve women and generally exonerate male sexual aggression. Key factors that cause rape myth are rigid gender roles, mistrust of the opposite sex, and believing violence is necessary to solve problems. Media content has been identifi...

Brief review of the use of new technologies and media that can be used for online harassment. The poster covers sexting, swatting, doxxing, cyberflashing, revenge porn, deep fakes, and online content and identity theft.

The features of social media continue to push technological boundaries. Even in times of COVID-19, we’ve seen an extraordinary advancement and use of technology to stay connected. While there are significant benefits to these advances, there have also been major drawbacks. One of these drawbacks is the abuse of using videos to live-stream crimes in...

Black Panther (2018) offers scholars a unique opportunity to measure the potential positive influence of the film on American youth, particularly youth of color. Past research demonstrated that, for African Americans, greater ethnic identity is associated with greater wellbeing and empowerment, findings we replicated here. We also studied the influ...

Watching or reading a story looks like a passive experience, but actually people’s minds are quite active when they engage with a story. This chapter explores how people construct representations of the various pieces of a story in their minds—from the situation being presented to the characters to the setting—so that they can understand each indiv...

This book explores a basic paradox about fiction: Whether the fiction in question is a book, film, or television show, fiction is simultaneously unreal and real. Fiction is a simulation of our real social lives. As such, watching a film or television show or reading a book gives people an opportunity to think about who they are, what they value, wh...

What makes a story timeless? Why are there certain story arcs people want to visit again and again? This chapter examines how the human experience is inextricably linked to stories. It considers how imagination factors into people’s ability to relate stories to their own lives, including through their dreams and daydreams, the elements of a story t...

This chapter explores the way fictional stories impact personal identity. It discusses how identity develops with a particular focus on adolescence. Then, it sheds light on how fiction contributes to identity construction as teens gain insight into things like careers, relationships, values, and beliefs through stories and how these insights can im...

The book is wrapped up with an examination of the future of fiction and the future of research on the benefits of engaging with a story. While it’s still in the early stages, research on the positive ways stories can impact people has started to uncover some compelling results. This epilogue reviews studies that indicate that stories can help us co...

This chapter provides an overview of how favorite stories impact people and help them learn and grow throughout their lives. The chapter covers how people’s relationships with stories evolve as they grow older. It discusses how story comprehension develops in childhood and the important role parents can play in introducing children to media of all...

Lovers of fiction share enthusiasm for their favorite stories and characters. Many remember iconic moments, such as Darth Vader revealing that he is Luke Skywalker’s father or Rose and Jack sailing carefree on the bow of the Titanic . These shared experiences create common ground and social connection. This chapter explores the psychology of why th...

Is Benedict Cumberbatch arrogant like Sherlock Holmes? Is Robert Downey Jr. really as arrogant and irreverent as Tony Stark? These are questions fans ask themselves when they’re trying to understand the difference between their favorite actors and the roles they are known for playing. This chapter leads readers through the process that people take...

When it comes to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other social categories, current research continues to document a lack of inclusion and a tendency to stereotype in film and television. However, there are also signs for hope. The recent success of films like Wonder Woman, Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians , and Love, Simon is sending a message...

Being a fan of a popular film, television, or book franchise is something most of us enjoy. But, we may not be familiar with the scientific study of fictional narrative or of fandom. In this book, two media psychologists reveal the sometimes-paradoxical idea that fiction helps us find truth in our real lives. Whether you consider yourself a fan or...

Being a fan of a popular film, television, or book franchise is something most of us enjoy. But, we may not be familiar with the scientific study of fictional narrative or of fandom. In this book, two media psychologists reveal the sometimes-paradoxical idea that fiction helps us find truth in our real lives. Whether you consider yourself a fan or...

Being a fan of a popular film, television, or book franchise is something most of us enjoy. But, we may not be familiar with the scientific study of fictional narrative or of fandom. In this book, two media psychologists reveal the sometimes-paradoxical idea that fiction helps us find truth in our real lives. Whether you consider yourself a fan or...

This chapter discusses the evolution of the Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek fandoms from their beginnings to their current releases. These brief histories highlight how fans communicated with each other before social media and how those communications changed with the advent of the Internet and social media. The dynamics of online groups, indi...

The purpose of this research was to develop a measure that systematically assesses the various components of film and television fan identity and to test its connection to well-being. Across two studies, the multidimensional Fan Identity Scale was developed and validated. The resulting 9-item survey yielded three factors that encompassed both perso...

Fans of popular culture media franchises make a good population to study long-term narrative effects. Fans have been building and elaborating cognitive networks -- with association emotions -- about story worlds and characters. This presentation describes the development and validation and extension of the Fan Identity Survey (FIS). FIS scores pred...

Social media (SM) use by adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is not well understood. Co-occurring mental health concerns, such as depression, are common for adults with ASD. The current investigation explored the relationship between SM use and happiness in a population of adults with self-disclosed ASD. Of the 84 percent of the sample who u...

Social media (SM) use by adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is not well understood. Co-occurring mental health concerns, such as depression are common for adults with ASD. The current investigation explored the relationship between SM use and happiness in a population of adults with self-disclosed ASD. Of the 84% of the sample who used SM,...

At this particular juncture in U.S. history, the fictional entertainment and news media stories we tell about black men are vitally important to our individual and collective development as a society. Mainstream media frequently reproduce white racial frames by presenting white characters as normal and superior to characters of color in narratives...

How do children and youth come to understand what it means to be a member of a particular race, gender, and other social groups? How do they come to hold beliefs about the groups that they do and do not belong to? Both news stories and fictional narratives that we are tuned into as a culture tell stories about what it means to be a member of a part...

In October 2014, a controversy surrounding video games erupted in the online world. Female game critics and reviewers, particularly Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn, were subject to numerous hostile and sexually degrading responses to their critiques of the gaming world that used the hashtag #gamergate. Chris Kluwe, a retired National Football League...

This memo, prepared by the Marie Fielder Center for Democracy, Leadership and Education, presents a summary and analysis of the varied dimensions of the current state of racial and ethnic tensions in the U.S. The authors used contemporary theoretical frameworks to examine influential media sources with perspectives that span across the political sp...

The rapid migration of social life online–including social support–is a topic of current interest. This research reports the development of a survey designed to compare preferences for mediated versus face-to-face (F2F) social support in an important health context: sobriety recovery. The SSPS (Sobriety Support Preference Scale) consisting of two p...

The rapid migration of social life online—including social support—is a topic of current interest. This research reports the development of a survey designed to compare preferences for mediated versus face-to-face (F2F) social support in an important health context: sobriety recovery. The SSPS (Sobriety Support Preference Scale) consisting of 2 par...

This essay provides an overview of research and theory on narrative and its important, functional role in human experience, including the ways people use media to interrogate their own beliefs and feelings, and derive social meaning. Thought‐provoking film, television, and books can help us make meaning of our lives and grow in ways that are import...

This is the story of the Mad Men fan phenomenon: how the show and its fans distinguished themselves in a market where it’s hard to make an impression, not unlike the driven ad execs at the center of the show. In this book, four media psychologists who also just happen to be dedicated Mad Men fans explore how the show’s viewers make meaning from fic...

The Office of Alcoholism & Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) estimates 10% of American adults consider themselves in recovery from alcohol/drug abuse (Rondó & Feliz, 2012). Support through social communities has long proven beneficial for compromised individuals (Davison, Pennebaker & Dickerson, 2000). As more people engage in mediated sobriety supp...

We summarize the main findings of Bushman, Gollwitzer, and Cruz (this issue), highlight its empirical contributions, and note interesting patterns and implications for future research. The results demonstrate the invalidity of the common claim that no consensus exists among experts on the reality of harmful media violence effects on children and ad...

Mad Men fans speak via social media: what fan voices reveal about the social construction of reality via dramatic fiction abStract Fans of complex television dramas often watch because of eudaimonic motivations – the desire to make meaning from media, to explore their own emotions and to learn about the human experience through the exploration of n...

Drinking and Sex: The Addictions of the Mad Men Through the Eyes of the Fans Drinking and infidelity are two major themes explored on the period drama Mad Men. As Mad Men enters its final season, a team of media psychologists explores how the fans make sense of drinking and infidelity through the lens of this popular and award-winning show. Fans’...

How fictional stories and characters help fans understand parenting: Mad Men fans grapple with what makes a good parent

Stripping away the hype, this book describes how, when, and why media violence can influence children of different ages, giving parents and teachers the power to maximize the media's benefits and minimize its harm. There are many opinions about media violence and children, but not all are supported by science. In this book, the top experts gather t...

Body dissatisfaction is a major source of suffering among women of all ages. One potential factor that could mitigate body dissatisfaction is self-compassion, a construct that is garnering increasing research attention due to its strong association with psychological health. This study investigated whether a brief 3-week period of self-compassion m...

In this investigation, the authors ask how media exemplars of Black masculinity influence the views of and intentions toward other Black men. An experiment compared the effects of exposure to Black video game characters fitting the exemplar thug or street criminal (e.g., Carl Johnson from GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS) versus exemplars of professio...

A content analysis of top-selling video game magazines (Study 1) and of 149 video game covers (Study 2) demonstrated the commonality of overt racial stereotyping. Both studies revealed that minority females are virtually absent in game representations. Study 1 revealed that, in video game magazines, minority males, underrepresented generally, were...

Developmental research on social influences on adolescents can guide practices aimed to prevent homicidal youth violence. School shootings have repeatedly raised questions about the contributory role of bullying and entertainment violence, how news media publicity might produce copycat crimes, and whether stiffer criminal sanctions might have a det...

This book is essentially about media influence—its power and our propensity either to deny that power or at least to fail in understanding fully how to deal with it. Both of these common stances—denial and impotence—raise many issues that merit further exploration. Throughout this book, I view the role of media in our culture through a wide-a...

This chapter enters the growing debate about whether playing video games with antisocial themes can be harmful. My specific focus is gen-der stereotypes in gaming and whether the perpetuation of these ster-eotypes supports violence against women. If in the end, my answer is yes, violent video games based on sexist stereotypes do support male violen...

In the 21st century, being a parent means having to deal with buying, monitoring, and negotiating about video games. A common question parents have is whether children can learn anything positive or of educational value by playing video games? The answer is “Yes!” Children can learn valuable skills by playing video games.

The violent video game literature has previously not extended to the domain of violence against women. The current investigation tested the effects of exposure to sex-typed video game characters versus images of professional men and women on judgments and attitudes supporting aggression against women. Results showed experimental effects of short-te...

A review of Kids and Media in America, by D. Roberts and U. Foehr, is provided. This book provides an in-depth report on how American children spend their leisure time, focusing on the pervasive nature of the media in their daily lives.

For this study we measured the prevalence of violence in top-selling video games with emphasis on a detailed description of the nature of the violence. Special attention was given to the interaction of video game violence with the demographics of the video game characters. Of primary interest was how the race, sex, and age of the characters related...

Two studies examined violent video game effects on aggression-related variables. Study 1 found that real-life violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The relation was stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive and for men. Academic achievement was negatively related to overall amoun...

Two studies examined violent video game effects on aggression-related variables. Study 1 found that real-life violent video game play was positively related to aggressive behavior and delinquency. The relation was stronger for individuals who are characteristically aggressive and for men. Academic achievement was negatively related to overall amoun...

The popularity of video games, especially violent video games, has reached phenomenal proportions. The theoretical line of reasoning that hypothesizes a causal relationship between violent video-game play and aggression draws on the very large literature on media violence effects. Additionally, there are theoretical reasons to believe that video ga...

A recent model of affective aggression [Anderson et al., 1996] proposes that individual differences and situational factors can affect aggressive behavior through cognitive, affective, and arousal pathways. An experiment tested the relations of trait hostility and physical pain to aggressive thoughts (the cognitive path) and state hostility (the af...

A recent model of affective aggression [Anderson et al,, 1996] proposes that individual differences and situational factors can affect aggressive behavior through cognitive, affective, and arousal pathways. An experiment tested the relations of trait hostility and physical pain to aggressive thoughts (the cognitive path) and state hostility (the af...

Individual differences in aggressive reaction tendencies appear early in life and are stable across the life span. People who chronically interpret ambiguously aggressive behaviors as intentionally hostile are more likely to aggress against a provocateur than people without this hostile bias. Two studies used a Structural Equation Modeling approach...

Examines the role of category-based expectancy violation in explaining extreme evaluations of ingroup and outgroup members. In three experiments, descriptions about ingroup and outgroup targets were varied to manipulate expectancy violation. Participants evaluated the global favorability and rated the trait characteristics of either an ingroup or a...

The popularity of video games, especially violent video games, has reached phenomenal proportions. The theoretical line of reasoning that hypothesizes a causal relationship between violent video-game play and aggression draws on the very large literature on media violence effects. Additionally, there are theoretical reasons to believe that video ga...