When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health
Media exposure influences mental health symptomology in response to salient aversive events, like terrorist attacks, but little has been done to explore the impact of news coverage that varies more subtly in affective content. Here, we utilized an existing data set in which participants self-reporte...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2018-08-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01333/full |
| _version_ | 1818021611579637760 |
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| author | Jolie B. Wormwood Madeleine Devlin Yu-Ru Lin Lisa Feldman Barrett Lisa Feldman Barrett Karen S. Quigley Karen S. Quigley |
| author_facet | Jolie B. Wormwood Madeleine Devlin Yu-Ru Lin Lisa Feldman Barrett Lisa Feldman Barrett Karen S. Quigley Karen S. Quigley |
| author_sort | Jolie B. Wormwood |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Media exposure influences mental health symptomology in response to salient aversive events, like terrorist attacks, but little has been done to explore the impact of news coverage that varies more subtly in affective content. Here, we utilized an existing data set in which participants self-reported physical symptoms, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms, and completed a potentiated startle task assessing their physiological reactivity to aversive stimuli at three time points (waves) over a 9-month period. Using a computational linguistics approach, we then calculated an average ratio of words with positive vs. negative affective connotations for only articles from news sources to which each participant self-reported being exposed over the prior 2 weeks at each wave of data collection. As hypothesized, individuals exposed to news coverage with more negative affective tone over the prior 2 weeks reported significantly greater physical and depressive symptoms, and had significantly greater physiological reactivity to aversive stimuli. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-14T08:21:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d375e632e0964c5d9ca763143547d680 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-14T08:21:20Z |
| publishDate | 2018-08-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-d375e632e0964c5d9ca763143547d6802022-12-22T02:04:12ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782018-08-01910.3389/fpsyg.2018.01333370118When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental HealthJolie B. Wormwood0Madeleine Devlin1Yu-Ru Lin2Lisa Feldman Barrett3Lisa Feldman Barrett4Karen S. Quigley5Karen S. Quigley6Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United StatesSchool of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United StatesDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, MA, United StatesDepartment of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United StatesEdith Nourse Rogers Memorial (VA) Medical Center, Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, Bedford, MA, United StatesMedia exposure influences mental health symptomology in response to salient aversive events, like terrorist attacks, but little has been done to explore the impact of news coverage that varies more subtly in affective content. Here, we utilized an existing data set in which participants self-reported physical symptoms, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms, and completed a potentiated startle task assessing their physiological reactivity to aversive stimuli at three time points (waves) over a 9-month period. Using a computational linguistics approach, we then calculated an average ratio of words with positive vs. negative affective connotations for only articles from news sources to which each participant self-reported being exposed over the prior 2 weeks at each wave of data collection. As hypothesized, individuals exposed to news coverage with more negative affective tone over the prior 2 weeks reported significantly greater physical and depressive symptoms, and had significantly greater physiological reactivity to aversive stimuli.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01333/fulldepressionmental healthstartle reflexnews mediaanxietyphysical symptoms |
| spellingShingle | Jolie B. Wormwood Madeleine Devlin Yu-Ru Lin Lisa Feldman Barrett Lisa Feldman Barrett Karen S. Quigley Karen S. Quigley When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health Frontiers in Psychology depression mental health startle reflex news media anxiety physical symptoms |
| title | When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health |
| title_full | When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health |
| title_fullStr | When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health |
| title_full_unstemmed | When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health |
| title_short | When Words Hurt: Affective Word Use in Daily News Coverage Impacts Mental Health |
| title_sort | when words hurt affective word use in daily news coverage impacts mental health |
| topic | depression mental health startle reflex news media anxiety physical symptoms |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01333/full |
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