Individual
Differences Theory

One message enters many different lives.

Suppose a university releases a short film asking students to separate recyclable waste. A student who has worked with a recycling group checks the film’s instructions. Another remembers overflowing bins near the hostel. A third watches for the humour and shares a joke from the film. They encounter the same production, yet carry different questions into it.

Individual Differences Theory explains this variation by examining the characteristics, experiences and purposes that people bring to media use. These differences can shape what they choose, what catches their attention, how they interpret it and what follows.

The perspective moves audience research towards a precise question: which people respond to which messages, through which processes, and under which conditions? It gives the receiver a place inside the explanation of media effects.

Start with a process

In the recycling example, prior knowledge may help a student recognise a practical error. Personal experience may make the problem feel urgent. A desire for amusement may direct attention towards a comic character. Each explanation connects a particular characteristic with a particular response.

A researcher can investigate those connections. Measure prior knowledge, record attention to the instructions and assess whether viewers can correctly sort sample items afterwards. This turns an impression about “different audiences” into a question that evidence can address.

Why it matters

Teachers, journalists and campaign designers often address people who differ in language, experience, motivation and familiarity with a topic. A single audience total can conceal those differences. A film may reach a thousand people while teaching some, reassuring others and leaving others uncertain.

The perspective encourages explanations at that finer scale. It also helps examine stronger effects among particular audiences, resistance among others and changes in response as people acquire knowledge or experience.

A working definition

Individual Differences Theory is a psychological perspective on media effects that explains variation in media selection, processing and outcomes through differences among audience members. Those differences operate within social relationships and material conditions.

Carry one question through the chapter: when two viewers respond differently, what evidence would identify the reason?

The perspective grew as researchers examined the audience more closely.

Individual differences entered media research through work on learning, attitudes, personality and persuasion. Researchers investigated how people receive and evaluate messages, and how existing commitments and everyday relationships shape influence.

The approach is commonly discussed within the limited-effects tradition. Joseph T. Klapper’s The Effects of Mass Communication (1960) placed media influence among other influences operating in people’s lives. Melvin L. DeFleur and Sandra Ball-Rokeach’s Theories of Mass Communication develops selective-influence approaches within a wider account of communication. Klapper ↓ · DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach ↓

From an audience category to an audience member

Broad accounts of media power often discuss “the public” or “the masses.” The individual-differences perspective opens those categories and examines variation within them. Two people of the same age, education and locality may differ in interest, confidence, prior knowledge or emotional response.

This shift gives psychological processes a central role. A communication reaches someone who already knows, expects, values and feels particular things.

Conditional influence

The word limited points towards conditions on influence. A prior commitment may encourage scrutiny of an opposing argument. Strong personal relevance may concentrate attention. An emotionally involving portrayal may touch one viewer more deeply than another.

Use the perspective to investigate the direction, size and distribution of an effect. Reinforcement, learning, disagreement and behavioural change are all possible questions for inquiry.

Connect a characteristic with a route of influence.

An explanation becomes useful when it identifies the link between an audience characteristic and an observed outcome. “The viewers were different” begins the inquiry. The next task is to show how a difference operated.

Selection changes the encounter

A student preparing a project may choose an explanatory video and replay its examples. Another may encounter the same topic while scrolling through a feed. Their opportunities to learn differ before either evaluates the argument.

Processing changes the meaning

During viewing, a person may compare a claim with previous knowledge, imagine a character’s feelings or concentrate on a striking sound. These responses help explain what the encounter becomes for that viewer.

Specify the outcome

An effect needs a clear object and a time frame. Immediate recall, continuing interest, attitude change and an action taken a week later answer different questions.

Measure these outcomes separately. A viewer can learn the rules while remaining dissatisfied with the university’s implementation. Another can endorse the proposal while lacking suitable bins near the hostel.

Follow the person over time

Media encounters accumulate within a life. A useful explanation may need to follow initial interest, repeated exposure, discussion and later practice. The student who learns a new sorting rule today may actively seek a more detailed guide tomorrow.

This makes the relationship dynamic. People select media, process them and carry the consequences into later encounters.

Choice, attention, interpretation and memory shape reception.

Selective processes describe different points at which audience members respond unevenly to media. They give researchers a vocabulary for examining how a common media environment becomes a particular person’s experience.

Exposure: following interest and seeking agreement

People choose information for several reasons: relevance, usefulness, enjoyment, curiosity and compatibility with existing views. In research on attitude-consistent selection, selective exposure often refers specifically to a preference for congenial information.

Leon Festinger’s A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957) explains the pressure to reduce psychologically uncomfortable inconsistency. Seeking supportive information is one possible response. Revising a belief, changing conduct or reinterpreting the inconsistency offers other routes. Read Festinger ↓

Hart and colleagues’ 2009 meta-analysis examines preferences for congenial information and the conditions surrounding them. Its distinction between defending a position and pursuing accuracy helps formulate a useful question: what is the person trying to accomplish through this search? Read the study ↓

Attention: locating the focus

A video can place an instruction, a comic exchange and a moving image on the screen within seconds. Viewers may concentrate on different elements. Ask what they noticed, what they followed closely and what distracted them.

For the recycling film, recall of the joke and recall of the sorting rules provide different clues. A researcher could combine a viewing task, a comprehension test and questions about the most striking scene.

Perception: building an interpretation

Interpretation connects a message with what the viewer already believes and expects. A remark can appear humorous, insulting, reassuring or evasive. Examine which cues the viewer uses to support that reading.

Open questions help here: “What point was the speaker making?” and “Which part led you to that interpretation?” The reasons can reveal more than an overall liking score.

Retention: following what survives

A delayed recall task asks what remains available after the encounter. Compare what people remember with what was presented. Record correct details, omissions and additions, then examine their relationship with prior beliefs and attention.

These processes can interact. An established interest can guide a choice, concentrate attention and support later recall. The research task is to identify the links that the evidence actually supports.

The purpose of media use helps explain the response.

A person can open the same app to learn a technique, keep someone company, enjoy a performance or fill a short break. Each purpose directs the encounter towards different rewards and different features of the content.

Motives connect the individual-differences perspective with uses and gratifications research. The shared concern is the audience member’s role in organising media use.

Rubin: purposes and viewing orientations

Alan M. Rubin’s work in 1983 and 1984 examines television motivations and the distinction between ritualized and instrumental use. His 1983 study identifies nine motives: relaxation, companionship, habit, passing time, entertainment, social interaction, information, arousal and escape. 1983 article ↓ · 1984 article ↓

Instrumental use is comparatively purposeful and selective, organised around particular content or goals. Ritualized use is comparatively habitual and oriented towards the medium as part of an established routine. These orientations help investigate attention, involvement and satisfaction.

Reiss: a wider map of human motives

Steven Reiss’s Who Am I? (2000) presents sixteen basic desires. His 2004 article develops the motivational framework. The desires are acceptance, curiosity, eating, family, honour, idealism, independence, order, physical activity, power, romance, saving, social contact, status, tranquillity and vengeance. The book ↓ · The article ↓

This is a general theory of human motivation. It offers questions for media research: could curiosity encourage a search for an explanation, or idealism direct attention towards a campaign? Translate such suggestions into specific, testable expectations.

Activity varies during use

A viewer may actively choose a documentary, drift during one segment and examine another closely. Activity can include selecting, interpreting, comparing, discussing and creating. Examine the activity relevant to the proposed effect.

For example, ask whether a student paused to check the recycling instructions or discussed them afterwards. That evidence connects activity with the task. A view count supplies a different piece of information: the recorded encounter.

Compare intended and experienced rewards

Ask participants what they hoped to obtain before use and what they obtained afterwards. A student seeking practical information may find reassurance, confusion or an unexpected question. This comparison helps explain both satisfaction and the next media choice.

Stable tendencies meet the situation of viewing.

Personality traits describe relatively enduring patterns in thought, feeling and behaviour. They can help formulate expectations about media preferences and responses. John and Srivastava’s account of the Big Five provides a widely used vocabulary. Read the chapter ↓

The familiar mnemonic OCEAN brings these five names together. Each describes a dimension along which people vary.

Move from a label to a hypothesis

Suppose you expect openness to predict interest in an unfamiliar film genre. Specify the measure of openness, the set of available films and the evidence of interest. Participants might choose a trailer, rate it or watch for a measured period.

Then consider alternatives. Previous exposure to the genre, language proficiency and the available viewing time could help explain the choice. A useful study gives these possibilities a place in the design.

Traits and states operate at different time scales

A trait concerns a relatively stable tendency. A state concerns a person’s condition at a particular moment: tiredness before a lecture, excitement during a match or irritation after a difficult journey.

Repeated observations can help distinguish them. If the same person responds differently across several sessions, examine what changed between those sessions. If a pattern recurs across people and occasions, investigate the more enduring differences that might contribute.

Describe a disposition precisely

Empathy, sensation seeking, hostility and enjoyment of effortful thought identify more specific lines of inquiry than a broad personality description. Choose the characteristic that fits the proposed process. For a suspense film, the relevant question may concern desired excitement; for an explainer, it may concern interest in sustained thought.

Measurement makes the distinction usable. Explain what the construct means, why it matters for the content and how the chosen instrument represents it.

Understanding, evaluating and acting involve different capacities.

A viewer brings several resources to a message: knowledge of the topic, language proficiency, reasoning skills, willingness to think and confidence in acting. Each can contribute to a different part of the encounter.

Reception and yielding

William J. McGuire’s 1968 information-processing account distinguishes reception of a persuasive communication from yielding to it. A characteristic can support understanding while also supporting resistance to an argument. This helps explain why the relationship between a personal characteristic and persuasion can depend on the task and the message. Read the chapter ↓

Intelligence or self-esteem therefore needs a process-specific explanation. Ask whether the proposed relationship concerns attention, comprehension, evaluation or agreement. The strongest explanation identifies how the characteristic enters that process.

Prior knowledge supplies a reference point

In the recycling film, someone familiar with waste processing can compare the instructions with local procedures. A newcomer may first need to learn the names and categories. Offer both viewers a comprehension task and ask them to explain their reasoning.

Expertise is also domain-specific. A person can read a statistical graph fluently and struggle with a musical score. Identify the relevant knowledge before interpreting a score as a general capacity.

Need for cognition concerns motivation to think

John T. Cacioppo and Richard E. Petty’s 1982 work develops the measurement of need for cognition: variation in people’s tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking. It helps examine differences in the inclination to scrutinise a message. Read the article ↓

A study could vary the quality of an argument and examine whether responses vary with measured need for cognition. Include evidence that participants recognised the argument and had an opportunity to process it. This connects the trait, the task and the proposed route.

Self-esteem concerns a person’s evaluation of self

Morris Rosenberg’s Society and the Adolescent Self-Image (1965) provides a foundational treatment of self-esteem. In media research, the concept can guide questions about how messages touch a person’s sense of worth. Read the book ↓

Suppose a campaign presents waste reduction as proof of being a responsible student. Investigate how viewers understand the appeal to identity and worth, and how that reading relates to agreement or discomfort.

Self-efficacy concerns a particular action

Albert Bandura’s 1977 account places perceived capability to perform an action at the centre of self-efficacy. For the recycling campaign, ask whether a viewer feels able to identify the categories, find the bins and carry out the sorting. Read the article ↓

A clear demonstration may help someone feel capable. The practical setting then matters: suitable bins, understandable labels and time to act. Trace the relationship between capability, opportunity and observed conduct.

A portrayal can move viewers along different emotional paths.

Media bring people close to suffering, celebration, conflict and achievement. Audience members can differ in how readily they imagine another person’s experience, how strongly they react and which characters they support.

Empathy has several dimensions

Mark H. Davis’s 1983 work presents a multidimensional approach to empathy. It distinguishes perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress and imaginative involvement with fictional situations. These distinctions help separate understanding another person, feeling concern and experiencing discomfort oneself. Read the article ↓

Suppose a documentary follows a family displaced by a river’s erosion. A viewer might understand the family’s choices, feel concern, become overwhelmed or imagine living through the same journey. Ask about these responses separately and relate them to the features of the portrayal.

Connect the feeling with the outcome

Feeling moved provides evidence about an emotional response. A further question concerns what follows: seeking information, discussing the issue, supporting an initiative or turning away. Identify the process proposed to connect the feeling with the later outcome.

A follow-up interview could ask which scene remained vivid and what the viewer did afterwards. Compare those accounts with a defined behavioural measure where the study permits one.

Character allegiance shapes enjoyment

Disposition approaches to entertainment examine how audiences evaluate characters and respond to their fortunes. Arthur A. Raney’s 2004 discussion develops questions about character liking, moral evaluation and enjoyment. Read the article ↓

A confrontation can invite satisfaction when viewers believe a favoured character has been defended. Other viewers may attend to the harm inflicted or the fairness of the portrayal. Examine whose perspective receives attention and which actions the audience regards as justified.

Hostility and violent entertainment

The individual-differences perspective supports precise questions about hostility, perceived deservingness and enjoyment. A study might investigate whether prior hostility relates to how viewers evaluate a victim or excuse a character’s conduct.

Specify each outcome. Enjoying a scene, judging it as justified, becoming physiologically aroused and behaving aggressively are separate observations. A research design needs evidence for the particular connection it proposes.

Mood enters the encounter

The same film can meet a person on an energetic afternoon and an exhausting evening. Repeated viewing sessions can reveal how temporary mood and circumstances accompany changes in response.

This returns us to the central question: what does this person bring to this portrayal at this moment, and how does that starting point enter the response?

A satire can meet the very beliefs it seeks to challenge.

Neil Vidmar and Milton Rokeach’s 1974 article, “Archie Bunker’s Bigotry: A Study in Selective Perception and Exposure,” examines responses to the American television programme All in the Family. Its central character, Archie Bunker, voices prejudiced views that the programme places within comic conflict. Read the article ↓

The study found differences associated with viewers’ prior prejudice. More prejudiced viewers were more likely to favour Archie and read the programme in ways sympathetic to him. Less prejudiced viewers were more likely to respond to its criticism of bigotry.

The finding gives selective perception a concrete form: audience members can enjoy the same programme while drawing different meanings from it.

What makes this case instructive?

The case separates the producer’s intended point, the audience’s interpretation and the audience’s enjoyment. An overall approval rating could place viewers together even when they approve of different things.

A contemporary research exercise could ask viewers to describe the character, explain the programme’s point and identify the lines they found funny. Compare those responses with a prior-attitude measure collected before exposure.

Build a better question about satire

Suppose a short online sketch mocks a character who spreads rumours. Ask whether viewers perceive the character as foolish, entertaining, courageous or unfairly treated. Then ask what they believe the sketch says about sharing rumours.

Those questions distinguish attraction to a performance from acceptance of its message. They also help identify which cues support the intended reading and which cues permit another one.

Carry the lesson into research

Define the meaning you intend to examine before collecting answers. Develop a coding scheme, retain room for unexpected interpretations and check whether coders apply the categories consistently.

This approach makes audience diversity visible in the evidence. It gives an explanation of reception a stronger foundation than assumptions drawn from a programme’s genre or declared purpose.

A useful explanation identifies who responds and how.

Individual differences invite two connected questions. Does a characteristic alter the relationship between exposure and an outcome? What process carries the proposed influence?

A moderator changes the relationship

Suppose an instructional film improves sorting performance more among beginners than among experienced recyclers. Prior knowledge may moderate the film’s effect. An appropriate analysis tests the difference between the effects across knowledge levels.

A mediator lies on a proposed causal path. If the film improves understanding, which then improves sorting performance, comprehension is a candidate mediator. Measure the proposed sequence and explain the assumptions supporting the causal interpretation.

A small average can conceal different patterns

Suppose an experiment compares a persuasive video with a comparison video. Two equally sized, predefined groups produce the following differences in average attitude change.

Here the equal and opposite differences cancel in the pooled average. The illustration shows why a researcher might examine heterogeneity. A claim about such a pattern in a real study requires estimates, adequate precision and a defensible explanation.

The Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model

Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter’s 2013 model, commonly abbreviated DSMM, integrates earlier insights through three forms of susceptibility: dispositional, developmental and social. It identifies cognitive, emotional and excitative response states as processes through which media effects can occur. Read the model ↓

Dispositional susceptibility includes personal tendencies; developmental susceptibility concerns development across the life course; social susceptibility concerns the surrounding social environment. The model also recognises reciprocal relationships between media use and outcomes.

Use these categories to widen the recycling-film inquiry. Examine existing interest, the viewer’s relevant developmental capacities and support from peers. Then investigate understanding, feeling and arousal during exposure.

Time matters

A person’s experience with one message can alter the starting conditions of a later encounter. Learning can increase confidence; an upsetting portrayal can change a future choice. Repeated observations help examine those changes within the same person.

Use psychological detail alongside social and material conditions.

The perspective gives communication practice a practical starting point: understand the people who will encounter a message, then test the response. Its value grows when that psychological detail remains connected with language, access, institutions and everyday relationships.

Teaching and public communication

An instructional page can offer a short overview, a worked example and an extended explanation. A learner can enter at an appropriate point and return when needed. Study which route helps which learners and which concepts remain difficult.

A public campaign can pair an explanation with a demonstration and a clear route to action. In the recycling example, show the categories and provide a way to locate the nearest collection point. Evaluate comprehension and practical use separately.

Journalism and entertainment

A news explainer can define unfamiliar terms and make its evidence accessible. Audience interviews can reveal whether people recognise the question, follow the account and distinguish reporting from a quoted claim.

Entertainment research can examine attachment to characters, moral interpretation and enjoyment. The Vidmar–Rokeach case shows why a producer benefits from investigating what audiences understand as well as whether they enjoy a programme.

Digital selection has several authors

On a platform, a person’s choices meet a system of available content, interface cues and recommendations. Research can examine both what the person selects and what the system places within reach.

Suppose a student repeatedly opens practical explainers. A study could record deliberate searches, recommended items, incidental encounters and subsequent viewing. Then compare how each route relates to learning and later choices.

Valkenburg, Peter and Walther’s 2016 review places conditional and transactional approaches within the broader development of media-effects research. It offers a useful bridge from the individual encounter to changing media environments. Read the review ↓

What the perspective explains well

Its strength is precision about variation. It helps specify an audience characteristic, a proposed process and an outcome. It also challenges the habit of treating reach, enjoyment or attitude change as interchangeable measures of success.

Questions that extend the explanation

A complete account may need evidence beyond psychology. The recycling film can teach a willing student who still has no accessible bin. A language barrier can limit comprehension before a difference in motivation becomes relevant.

Ask how content quality, social support and practical resources interact with the person’s starting conditions. Compare responses within demographic groups and inspect the actual pathways behind any difference between groups.

Use differences to support participation

Offer understandable alternatives, test them with the intended audience and retain room for individual choice. A useful design helps people pursue their purposes and examines whether the communication serves them. Audience research can guide that work through evidence about needs, interpretation and access.

Follow the proposed process in each case.

Read each situation, identify the relevant differences and select evidence that could explain the response. Open the analysis after forming your own account.

Bring the lecture into your study of audience variation.

In my lecture, Individual Differences Theory and Media Effects, I discuss motives, personality, empathy, information processing and selective exposure. Watch with one example in mind and trace how the audience member’s characteristics enter the encounter.

Watch my lecture on YouTube ↗

Pause and apply

Choose a video that two people you know have discussed. Write down the different meanings they drew from it. Propose one characteristic that could help explain the difference, then state what additional evidence you would need.

After watching, return to the distinction between selection, processing and outcomes. Locate your explanation at the appropriate point and identify what the example actually demonstrates.

Test the distinctions that make an explanation precise.

Choose an answer before opening each explanation. Use any uncertain answer to locate the concept you need to revisit.

Turn audience variation into a researchable question.

Activity 1 · Compare two readings of one message

Choose a short, accessible media item on a topic suitable for classroom discussion. Invite two consenting adults to view it and explain its main point in their own words.

1. Record the message: state its source, form, intended audience and apparent purpose.
2. Record the readings: ask what each person noticed, understood, felt and remembered.
3. Propose a process: connect one difference in response with a plausible characteristic or circumstance.
4. Consider alternatives: inspect language, prior exposure, viewing conditions and personal relevance.
5. State the evidential limit: explain what a larger, more structured study would need to establish.

Suggested output: an 800–1,000-word account including a short description of the item, a comparison of the readings and a proposed follow-up study. Use participants’ accounts respectfully and remove identifying details.

Activity 2 · Improve a teaching message

Design two versions of a short explanation: one introducing the topic and one developing a worked example. Specify the learners’ starting knowledge and the task they should perform afterwards.

Explain why the versions might help different learners. Then propose a comparison that could test that expectation. Include comprehension and performance measures, alongside a question about the learner’s experience.

A quantitative research design

Research question: does prior knowledge alter the effect of a recycling-instruction video on sorting performance?

Define the primary question and analysis before inspecting the results. Keep knowledge continuous where the measurement supports it. Arbitrary “high” and “low” splits discard information and can make a pattern depend on the chosen dividing point.

The central statistical question concerns the exposure × prior-knowledge interaction. Plot the estimated exposure effect over the observed knowledge range and include uncertainty. Interpret the pattern in relation to the task and the sample.

If you also examine mediation through comprehension, state the extra causal assumptions involved. Random assignment to a video establishes the exposure contrast; comprehension itself remains a measured post-exposure variable in this design.

A qualitative research design

Research question: how do viewers with different prior commitments interpret a satirical character?

Use a purposive sample, collect accounts of prior views, show the same material under comparable conditions and invite open explanations. Code interpretations, emotional reactions and character evaluations separately. Examine unexpected and contradictory cases, and document how the interpretation was developed.

Examination and seminar prompts

• Explain the individual-differences perspective using one message and two possible audience responses.
• Distinguish selective exposure, attention, perception and retention with examples.
• Discuss how motives, personality, prior knowledge and confidence can enter media processing.
• Explain what the Vidmar–Rokeach study contributes to research on reception.
• Distinguish moderation from mediation and propose a design for each.
• Assess the contribution of individual differences while considering social context and practical resources.

Keep the explanation close to the person, process and evidence.

Key terms

Individual differences

Variation among people in characteristics, experiences, capacities and purposes relevant to an inquiry.

Media effect

A change or pattern in knowledge, feeling, evaluation or behaviour attributable to a media encounter under specified conditions.

Limited-effects tradition

Research emphasising the conditions and other influences surrounding media power.

Disposition

A relatively enduring tendency that can enter selection or response.

Trait

A relatively stable dimension of thought, feeling or behaviour.

State

A condition experienced at a particular time, such as fatigue or excitement.

Motive

A purpose or desired reward that helps organise action.

Instrumental use

Comparatively purposeful and selective media use oriented towards particular content or goals.

Ritualized use

Comparatively habitual media use embedded in routine and affinity with the medium.

Audience activity

The selection, interpretation, comparison, discussion or creation undertaken in media use.

Selective exposure

Preferential selection of information; in attitude research, often a preference for congenial information.

Selective attention

Differential concentration on features of available content.

Selective perception

Interpretation shaped by prior beliefs, expectations and experience.

Selective retention

Differential remembering of encountered information.

Cognitive dissonance

Psychologically uncomfortable inconsistency among relevant cognitions that can motivate efforts to reduce it.

Prior knowledge

Relevant understanding already available before the media encounter.

Need for cognition

A tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking.

Self-esteem

A person’s evaluation of self-worth.

Self-efficacy

A person’s belief in the capability to perform a particular action.

Big Five

Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism: broad personality dimensions.

Empathy

A multidimensional construct involving responses to, and understanding of, another person’s experience.

Empathic concern

Other-oriented feelings of care and concern.

Personal distress

Self-oriented discomfort in response to another person’s distress.

Moderator

A variable that changes the relationship between an exposure and an outcome.

Mediator

A variable on a proposed causal path connecting exposure with an outcome.

Interaction

A pattern in which the effect of one variable varies according to another variable.

Heterogeneity

Variation in effects or other relationships across people, settings or conditions.

Differential susceptibility

Variation in responsiveness to media associated with dispositional, developmental or social conditions.

Reciprocal relationship

A relationship in which media use and outcomes can influence one another over time.

Operationalisation

The translation of a concept into a stated procedure for observation or measurement.

Further reading

Begin with the readings closest to your question. The foundational texts establish the perspective; the empirical studies and later models help develop a more specific investigation.

1. DeFleur, M. L., & Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1989). Theories of mass communication (5th ed.). Longman. Read ↗A foundational account of selective influence within communication theory.
2. Klapper, J. T. (1960). The effects of mass communication. Free Press. Read ↗Locate media influence among other influences in a total situation.
3. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press. Read ↗Examine inconsistency, motivation and information-related responses.
4. McGuire, W. J. (1968). Personality and attitude change: An information-processing theory. In A. G. Greenwald, T. C. Brock, & T. M. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 171–196). Academic Press. Read ↗Distinguish reception and yielding in a process account of persuasion.
5. Vidmar, N., & Rokeach, M. (1974). Archie Bunker’s bigotry: A study in selective perception and exposure. Journal of Communication, 24(1), 36–47. Read ↗Investigate prior prejudice, character evaluation and reception of satire.
6. Rubin, A. M. (1983). Television uses and gratifications: The interactions of viewing patterns and motivations. Journal of Broadcasting, 27(1), 37–51. Read ↗Connect audience purposes with viewing patterns.
7. Rubin, A. M. (1984). Ritualized and instrumental television viewing. Journal of Communication, 34(3), 67–77. Read ↗Study differing orientations towards television use.
8. Reiss, S. (2000). Who am I? The 16 basic desires that motivate our behavior and define our personality. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam. Read ↗Explore a general motivational framework discussed in my lecture.
9. Reiss, S. (2004). Multifaceted nature of intrinsic motivation: The theory of 16 basic desires. Review of General Psychology, 8(3), 179–193. Read ↗Read the research argument for the sixteen-desire framework.
10. John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 102–138). Guilford Press. Read ↗Review the broad trait dimensions and their measurement.
11. Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116–131. Read ↗Study individual differences in the inclination towards effortful thought.
12. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton University Press. Read ↗Read a foundational treatment of self-esteem.
13. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. Read ↗Connect perceived capability with action and persistence.
14. Davis, M. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 113–126. Read ↗Distinguish dimensions of empathy and their measurement.
15. Raney, A. A. (2004). Expanding disposition theory: Reconsidering character liking, moral evaluations, and enjoyment. Communication Theory, 14(4), 348–369. Read ↗Explore character evaluation and entertainment enjoyment.
16. Hart, W., Albarracín, D., Eagly, A. H., Brechan, I., Lindberg, M. J., & Merrill, L. (2009). Feeling validated versus being correct: A meta-analysis of selective exposure to information. Psychological Bulletin, 135(4), 555–588. Read ↗Examine evidence about congenial information selection and its conditions.
17. Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2013). The Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model. Journal of Communication, 63(2), 221–243. Read ↗Connect susceptibility with cognitive, emotional and excitative responses.
18. Valkenburg, P. M., Peter, J., & Walther, J. B. (2016). Media effects: Theory and research. Annual Review of Psychology, 67, 315–338. Read ↗Place conditional and transactional perspectives in the wider research field.

My lecture: Individual Differences Theory and Media Effects ↗

Six statements to retain

1. People enter media encounters with different knowledge, motives, dispositions and experiences.
2. Selection, attention, interpretation and retention identify distinct questions about reception.
3. Understanding, enjoyment, agreement and action require different measures.
4. A personal characteristic becomes explanatory through a specified process and context.
5. Variation in effects needs direct evidence, including appropriate tests and uncertainty.
6. Social relationships, media arrangements and practical resources help shape what an encounter can accomplish.