Do Fans of Violent Stories Show a Higher Potential for Creative Harm? True Crime as a Stimulating Environment for Malevolent Creativity

ABSTRACT The media we consume may shape our cognition, emotion, and behavior. While violent media effects on aggression have been studied extensively, one popular media genre has escaped scrutiny until now: true crime, featuring real stories of assault, murder, or serial killings. We investigated the idea that the manifold examples of real human violence in true crime may be linked to people's capacity for malevolent creativity—generating creative ideas for harming others. Yet, in two cross‐sectional studies, we found only weak to contradictory evidence for this idea. Using multiple regression models, in Study 1 ( n = 160), true crime consumption was only linked to higher fluency on a malevolent creativity test (MCT) in individuals high in trait aggression. In Study 2 ( n = 307), links of true crime consumption with malevolent creativity were eclipsed by links to fictional horror, other media preference, and depressive affect. Moreover, both studies found that high true crime consumption seemed to mitigate the link between general creativity and malevolent originality. Although further experimental and longitudinal research is needed, true crime may potentially inhibit consumers from applying their creative potential to uniquely harming others, which may suggest prosocial and empathic motives in true crime consumption.