Television Stories and the Cultivation of Moral Reasoning: The Role of Genre Exposure and Narrative Engageability

Abstract

This study explores the potential of television genres to cultivate different types of moral reasoning. In a prolonged exposure experiment, participants (N = 121) were exposed to video material from 1 of 3 genres (crime, medical drama, comedy) over the course of 4 weeks. Using the Neo-Kohlbergian approach (Rest et al., 1999a), the study measured effects of genre exposure on the strength of personal interest reasoning, maintaining norms reasoning, and postconventional reasoning, taking into account individuals’ predisposition to become engaged in narratives (narrative engageability). Although exposure to crime drama had no influence, medical drama raised maintaining norms reasoning and lowered postconventional reasoning. Exposure to comedy raised postconventional reasoning. Narrative engageability emerged as a strong predictor, showing that the propensity to become engaged in narratives is positively related to postconventional reasoning and negatively related to maintaining norms reasoning.