Soap Opera Viewers and Relationship Beliefs : Two Studies of Relational Schemas

ISBN-13: 9783838325187 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 164 str.

Steven Hoekstra

Opis

Many individuals anecdotally express concern about whether watching too many soap operas is somehow bad for viewers. Does watching soaps cause viewers to have a distorted set of beliefs about and expectations toward relationships in their everyday lives? This book contains a monograph of the author s doctoral dissertation, in which he explores the social cognition and relationship learning that occurs from soap operas. Do soap opera viewers hold different sets of beliefs about sex in relationships? About conflict? About romance? About break-up? In the first study, Dr. Hoekstra tests the existence of such beliefs in the context of both relationships in general and in the context of a viewer s actual current relationship. In the second study, Dr. Hoekstra examines whether soap viewers have a different capacity for recognizing, remembering, and constructing hypothetical relationship plots with typical soap-opera sorts of themes.

O autorze

Steven Hoekstra, Ph.D., teaches psychology at Kansas Wesleyan University. He earned his Masters and Doctoral degrees from Kansas State University. His research interests are eclectic, but include such things as media effects, interpersonal relationships, and self cognition.