Mass Media Depictions of Victim Suffering: Testing Implications for Exemplification and Moral Influence

Recent work has reconceptualized Bandura’s moral disengagement paradigm as continuums of moral influence, whereby media cues can influence moral judgments by both weakening (disengaging) moral sensitivities and strengthening (engaging) moral sensitivities. This study applies both continuums of moral influence theorizing and exemplification theory to experimentally investigate how media depictions of victims’ bodily suffering may influence a range of perceptions and emotional reactions. As part of this investigation, this study examines whether such depictions may influence perceptions of victims as humanized or dehumanized, an issue that has been debated in theoretical and critical literature. A 2 X 2 between-subjects experiment (N = 356) that features professionally edited photographic stimuli tests and compares the effects of two visual cues of victim suffering: blood and face pain. Results show that more graphic and intense visual cues of victim suffering differentially increase perceptions of a victim’s suffering, perceptions of image graphicness, audience emotional intensity, and perceptions of a victim’s human complexity. Implications for future research on the moral implications of mass media cues of suffering are discussed.