We study the relationship between exposure to media and audience morality.

Our work attempts to advance previous understandings of media influence by taking a step back to assess more basal mechanisms responsible for social attitude formation and behavior change. With an approach rooted in understandings of both cognitive and moral psychology, we study the reciprocal relationship between exposure to media content and moral judgment & behavior in audiences across the lifespan. We are especially interested in outcomes in which media’s influence may have great social exigency, leading us to uniquely focus on the role of entertainment media as a contributing factor in children’s moral proclivities and, separately, the extent to which appeals to morality can be an effective tool for radicalizing individuals to join or act on behalf of violent terrorist organizations.

We are located in the Department of Communication at The University at Buffalo, State University of New York.