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Subconscious Gatekeeping: The Effect of Death Thoughts on Bias Toward Outgroups in News Writing

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/15205436.2011.568317

1532-7825

David Cuillier,

Media Influence and Health

Abstract This study contributes to gatekeeping theory by examining the importance of individual-level subconscious psychological factors in news story fact selection, specifically whether the thought of death increases biased writing toward outgroups. An experiment (N = 79), based on terror management theory from social psychology, indicated that college journalists primed to think about death injected into their news stories 66% more negative facts toward a rival university than those in a control condition. Implications for mass media research, particularly individual-level psychological factors overriding routine gatekeeping forces, are discussed. Notes 1The dental-pain control has been used in 64% of terror management studies to rule out the possibility that effects in the mortality salience group are caused by change in mood—participants becoming more fearful, uncomfortable, and so on. Studies have found that there is no difference between control groups that are neutral (e.g., asking participants to write random thoughts, about television, music, or nothing) and control groups that focus on unpleasant thoughts (dental pain, paralysis, a car crash, or difficult school exam). See Burke et al. (Citation2010) for further discussion of control groups in terror management research. 2Because of the extensive use of this manipulation in more than 220 studies, or 80% of terror management theory experiments (see Burke et al., Citation2010), a manipulation check was not conducted to make sure that participants wrote about death when asked to write about death. For previous research documenting the validity of the Projective Life Attitudes Assessment, particularly among college students, see Nelson et al. (Citation1997), Greenberg et al. (1994), and Burke et al. (Citation2010). 3To test the validity of the dependent variable measures—that students perceive these facts as reflecting poorly on the rival school—a separate study was conducted with similar students at the same university. A paper survey was distributed to 77 students asking each person to read the notes and then rate 11 individual facts listed on a second page for "whether it makes the rival school look good or bad" (1 = great, 2 = good, 3 = neutral, 4 = bad, 5 = terrible). The means for all six facts included in this study were above the midpoint of 3, ranging from 3.28 to 4.71, indicating that these college students perceived the facts as portraying the rival school negatively. Similar facts regarding the home team had means of less than 3.0, indicating that students did not perceive those facts as negative toward the rival team. Therefore, the six facts composing the dependent variable index are viewed by students as reflecting poorly on the rival university. Two of the six facts, regarding the Aryan Nation and deportation to Mexico, incorporate other elements of "outgroups," so those in the mortality salience condition might be more likely to include those facts because of their cultural worldviews against supremacists or illegal immigrants rather than their views toward the rival school. However, the facts were still included in the analysis because of students' perceptions that they reflect poorly on the rival university. Note. DP = Dental Pain control group; MS = mortality salience group. a n = 38. b n = 41. c N = 79. d Difference in means between DP group and MS group is statistically significant, F(1, 77) = 5.71, p = .02. 4Story lengths were about the same for the two conditions—8.5 paragraphs for the mortality salience condition and 7.6 paragraphs for the control condition—and the difference was not statistically significant, F(1,77) = 1.20, ns. Therefore, the additional negative facts in the mortality salience condition were not caused by writing longer stories. 5To rule out the possibility that the thought of death causes people to become more negative overall, to rival teams or home teams, facts that reflected negatively toward the home team were also analyzed (e.g., rival team's coach saying home team fans "are always rude"). There was no significant difference between the death group or control group in the number of negative facts toward the home team included in stories. Also some facts that reflected positively toward the home team or rival team were analyzed and also found no significant difference between experimental groups. Therefore, those in the death-thought group were equivalent in nearly all ways to the control group except that they were more likely to include negative facts toward the rival team. 6In addition to those analyses, an analysis of covariance was utilized with the dependent variable and the negative affect measure, finding that the mortality salience group was still statistically significant from the dental-pain group, F(2, 76) = 5.95, p = .02. An analysis of covariance with the Positive Affect scale rendered the same results, F(2, 76) = 6.16, p = .02. Mood had no bearing on the differences between the two experimental conditions. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDavid Cuillier David Cuillier (Ph.D., Washington State University, 2006) is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism at University of Arizona. His primary research interests include freedom of information and media psychology.