Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Building on recent work in evolutionary psychology, we predict that there should be substantial gender differences in demand for “tabloid” news. Specifically, we argue that viewers are motivated to seek out negative information about potential intrasexual competitors, even when those competitors are “virtual” competitors appearing in mass media. Therefore, we predict that male viewers should be disproportionately likely to seek out information that damages the power and status of male competitors, whereas female viewers should seek information that diminishes the apparent attractiveness of female competitors.

We test this prediction in two ways. First, we conducted a content analysis and aggregate statistical analysis of national opinion data regarding news attention. Second, we conducted a news menu experiment in which participants were asked to select and read the two most interesting stories from a menu of six headlines. The experiment was a 2 (Gender of viewer) X 2 (Gender of competitor) X 2 (Party affiliation of competitor) design, in which each group saw one of the headlines promoting a DUI arrest of an attractive male or female “rising star” from each of the two political parties. We find very strong results for male respondents, and somewhat weaker results for female respondents. We also find a strong positive correlation between respondents’ self-assessed attractiveness and the likelihood of seeking and distributing negative information about same-sex “virtual” competitors.