Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: * For Consideration for the Conference within a Conference *
A large body of research suggests human emotions are organized around two basic motivational systems: the appetitive system and the aversive system (P.J. Lang, Bradley & Cuthbert, 1997). It has also been suggested that these two systems are separate, and do not always work reciprocally (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999).
Based on this view of emotion, this study explored the variation in the activation of the appetitive and aversive motivational systems as a function of threat types in the context of video game play. One interesting notion that came from Cacioppo and his colleagues is the state of coactivation, where both motivational systems are activated at the same time. Relatively little work has been done around this idea in psychology, and communication scholars have just started to study the effect of coactivation on information processing (e.g., Lang & Sanders-Jackson, 2006)
This study used a custom-built video game to manipulate the subjects’ motivational system activation to compare three different motivational states: appetitive, aversive, and coactive. Predictions for information processing were made based on the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP, Lang 2006a, 2006b). The manipulation of the targeted motivational systems was successful, and the data found general support for the theory. Overall, the findings from this study provide insight to the relationship between motivational system activation and information processing.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper considers one scientific approach to media, specifically, the influence of primitive nervous system responses on how people interact with mediated messages and in particular with video games, how the oldest parts of the human brain interact with the newest forms of mediated communication. The human brain developed to deal with the real world. Real things, moving through real environments, pursuing goals related to living. Our goal is to consider how the structure and the content of mediated messages automatically and differentially activate the appetitive and aversive motivational systems in the human being, and how that differential activation impacts higher order emotional and cognitive processing of media and media messages. In order to do this, this paper reviews three basic theoretical perspectives: 1) a theoretical perspective on “thinking”; 2) a theoretical perspective on motivation and emotion; 3) a theoretical perspective on media. Following this background material, the paper applies these theoretical perspectives, in concert, to four basic questions: 1) How and when do media activate underlying motivational systems? 2) How does activation of the motivational systems impact emotional response? 3) How does the activation of underlying motivational systems impact thinking? 4) How does motivational activation, as an individual difference, affect media use and mediated message processing? Each of these four questions is considered first in general, as related to any medium – and then in the context of playing and designing video games.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Murder and the law of murder are an unacknowledged anchor for the whole fear of crime/war on crime model of governance. Because of the central focus of both fiction and non-fiction television on murder, it is stimulus to the penal appetite that is constantly replenished by acts of random violence. Most of us who advocated an end to mass incarceration, tip toe around murder, even suggesting we could keep murderers in prison longer if we did not have a war on drugs, etc. But if the legal response to murder is part of what helps set our social appetite for punishment, leaving that unreformed may operate to prevent any longterm draw down of mass incarceration. It also adds to the racial concentration of punishment and the imagination of crime since around half of all homicides in America involve African Americans as victims and or perpetrators. California is a model of this problem with all paroles for murder now requiring the governor to agree, the numbers have become tiny (even if slightly improved under Scharzenegger).

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: One expression of American exceptionalism is economic inequality: the gap between rich and poor is greater in the United States than in any other advanced industrial nation. Tax policy is one reason why. The U.S. federal government taxes less, and taxes less progressively than its peers – tendencies only accentuated by recent events. Shortly after taking office and then again in 2003, President George W. Bush proposed and Congress passed two of the largest and most regressive tax cuts in U.S. history. The President’s proposals were generally embraced by the public, and the question we take up here is why? How can we understand the American appetite for cutting taxes, even when the benefits of the cuts go disproportionately to the few and well-heeled? The answer, we suggest, has to do with two features deeply embedded in the American political experience. Support for President Bush’s tax proposals has much to do with liberalism and with race: with the suspicion of government and the commitment to individualism associated with the tradition of classical liberalism; and with racial resentments and attachments rooted in the history of slavery and discrimination.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The current study examines the persuasiveness of Blame vs. Attack anti-tobacco campaigns using the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) framework that suggests those more likely to smoke cigarettes (risk takers and coactives) will be persuaded by different messages than those less likely to smoke cigarettes (risk avoiders and inactives). In addition to the message type of Blame or Attack, this study examines message components used to increase awareness (i.e., Message Sensation Value, MSV) and asks participants to evaluate arousal and hedonic valence of the message (i.e., positive, negative, or coactive), all of which have been shown to affect persuasiveness of the message. A 2 (Positivity Offset – low/high) X 2 (Negativity Bias – low/high) X 2 (Message Type – Attack/Blame) X 2 (MSV – low/high) x Message Replication (5) x Order repeated measures design was used. Findings suggest that High MSV Attack messages are superior to Low MSV and Blame messages in terms of persuasiveness and generating arousal and emotional responses capable of influencing information processing. In addition, intent not to smoke in the future was affected more by High MSV Attack messages. Overall findings suggest aversive activation may have a larger sway on attitudes and behaviors than appetitive activation.