B Mclaughlin
Biographic Data
| ID | 55980 |
|---|---|
| NAME | B Mclaughlin |
| GIVEN NAMES | B |
| FAMILY NAME | Mclaughlin |
| SIGNATURE | MCLAUGHLIN B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas Tech University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3710-1521 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Role of Perceived Warmth, Competence, and Opportunity on Candidate Threat Perception and Campaign Participation
According to the stereotype content model, negative campaign messaging should induce the greatest perception of threat and promote greater campaign participation when a political candidate presents the outgroup candidate as lacking in warmth but possessing a high level of competence. However, the current political environment suggests that political campaigns can also induce perceptions of threat by focusing on the external circumstances that pro…
Living in a (Mediated) Political World
The present research draws from the work in narrative transportation to examine the impact of problematic news consumption (PNC) on increased political hostility among partisans. Because individuals with high levels of PNC tend to become absorbed and fixated on the mediated political world, which is filled with exaggerated depictions of political conflict, they should be more prone to view those who disagree with them as “enemies,” leading to an …
Problematic News Consumption and Its Relationship to Mental and Physical Health
McLaughlin, Gotlieb, and Mills introduced the concept of problematic news consumption (PNC) in their 2023 study, finding that those classified as having severely problematic news consumption (16.5% of the sample) exhibited significantly greater levels of mental and physical ill-being. These results were the product of a single cross-sectional survey, however. Using a two-wave longitudinal survey, we sought to replicate their findings. In the curr…
Characterizing Political News Consumers and Their Civic Potential
Using a two-wave, longitudinal survey, this study examined the civic potential of news consumers, moving beyond consideration of how closely they follow political news to also consider the nature of their news consumption. Specifically, we conducted latent profile analysis and compared the emerging political news consumer profiles in their levels of civic engagement. We found that problematic political news consumers stand apart from most other p…
Stitch incoming
This study examined how TikTok use relates to political engagement and aggression. Due to different imagined audiences , we expected TikTok use to be more strongly related with contentious political engagement than use of other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. In order to test these expectations, we conducted a survey with 700 U.S. adults. Results show that TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter use is positively related to online pol…
The Imagined Influences of the Imagined Bubbles
In this Research Note, we argue that narrative thought (a particularly instrumental form of mental elaboration) is an important mechanism that can enhance the influence of presumed influence. Using an online experiment, we find that (1) partisans generate more narrative thoughts when considering how filter bubbles affect out-group members (compared to in-group members), (2) narrative thoughts are related to an increased perception that filter bub…
A Waste of Time? Partisan Deliberative Bias as a Barrier to Political Crosstalk
Americans are increasingly unwilling to talk about politics with out-partisans. One potential barrier to such cross-cutting partisan conversations may be partisans’ tendency to stereotype out-partisans as lacking the deliberative traits necessary to have a productive conversation (i.e., partisan deliberative bias). Here, three studies examine the presence of partisan deliberative bias, its relationship to cross-cutting political talk, and potenti…
Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments
In contrast to 2018, the 2021 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments showed a decrease in undergraduate student enrollment in journalism and mass communication programs as well as decreases in the percentage of minority undergraduate and graduate students enrolled. In addition, it showed an increase in the percentage of programs reporting decreases in their operating budgets and increases in hiring freezes for faculty and staff. Th…
Caught in a Dangerous World
This study adds to the growing body of literature on problematic media behavior by introducing and explicating the concept of problematic news consumption, which we define as involving transportation, preoccupation, misregulation, underregulation, and interference. Using survey data from a national sample of U.S. adults, we examine the factor structure of a problematic news consumption measure, the existence of latent classes derived from the exp…
Can’t get no (life) satisfaction
This study explored whether boundary expansion is related to increased life satisfaction. In order to examine this possibility, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we used an experiment to promote either state boundary expansion or state escapism. Although the manipulation was unsuccessful, we did find a positive correlation between expansion and life satisfaction, while escape was not related to life satisfaction. Study 2 examined the relation…
There must be a villain
This study examined the role political villains play in individuals’ political imagination, which can then lead to political violence. When there is a threatening villain, partisans should become more likely to construct elaborate narratives about the political world, which can lead them to believe the violence against the opposition is justified. Study 1 uses a survey to provide evidence that exposure to partisan news sources cultivates the perc…
Online political networks as fertile ground for extremism
This research note draws from the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), uncertainty-identity theory, and intergroup threat theory to investigate the conditions under which members of online political networks are likely to endorse extremism. Using a national survey of 717 U.S. adults who self-identify as members of an online group comprising politically like-minded others, we find that when perceived group threat is high, group…
Deliberating alone
In our research examining how people think and talk about immigration, we consistently find that people want to have a reasonable conversation about politics, but they often decide that productive conversations are not possible because other people are uninformed, irrational, close-minded, and uncivil. We argue that self-serving biases and phenomenological experiences lead to the biased perception that the self is far more capable of adhering to …
Examining teachers' intentions to intervene
Despite the growing prevalence of cyberbullying in India, there is a lack of empirical research available to guide school‐based interventions. Employing a survey of 402 teachers in Indian schools, the present study utilized the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a framework to examine the factors influential in encouraging teachers to intervene in school cyberbullying situations. The results reveal that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived …
Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments
In contrast to previous years, enrollments in journalism and mass communication programs in the United States were relatively stable from 2015 to 2018. Although strategic communication sequences remained the most popular, the percentage of undergraduates enrolled in journalism sequences increased since the previous survey, whereas the percentage enrolled in strategic communication sequences decreased slightly. In addition, the demographic composi…
Emotions and Affective Polarization
In the context of an increasingly divided populace, this article considered how the emotions (enthusiasm and anxiety) partisans feel toward U.S. presidential candidates may heighten or diminish affective polarization. In Study 1 (American National Election Studies [ANES] 2008–2009 panel data), we found that enthusiasm for the in-group candidate and anxiety about the out-group candidate were related to higher levels of affective polarization, wher…
The political world within
This paper considers how citizens process and experience political narratives. We start by providing a general overview of political narratives. Next, we discuss how citizens mentally represent narratives, how individual stories interact with pre-existing knowledge, and how citizens use diverse sources of information to construct seemingly cohesive mental models of the political story world. Third, we describe how citizens become transported into…
Becoming a Presidential Candidate
Political candidates increasingly use social media to tell their stories, share their thoughts and feelings and chronicle an unfolding election. We argue that the concept of identification—the process through which an audience member cognitively assumes the perspective of a media personality—can help illuminate how online campaigns can increase citizen support. This study employed a two-wave survey with a U.S. national sample conducted prior to t…
Winning on Social Media
The 2016 US Presidential Election provided an opportunity to examine how political candidates' use of social media can affect voting intentions. This study considers how political candidates can use social media to increase potential supporters' perceptions that they will win the election, providing them extra motivation to go out and vote. Results from a two-wave survey provide evidence that following the in-group candidate (Trump or Clinton) re…
Leaving the Past (Self) Behind
Using a symbolic interactionist framework, this study considers the narratives of non-reporting rape survivors. We use interviews to examine the complex processes that inform a survivor's decision not to report. Rape is not interpreted as an isolated event; it is something that is seen as caused by, connected to, and affecting the survivor's sense of self and agency. Rape forces the survivor to reconstruct a sense of agency in the aftermath of th…
Stereotyped Identification
This article applies the concept of stereotyped identification—the idea that cognitively and emotionally identifying with fictional minority characters can simultaneously increase acceptance of minorities while reinforcing stereotypes about how they look, act, and talk—to the context of Latina television characters. Specifically, we employed a national survey measuring participants’ exposure to Latina TV characters; levels of identification with …
Expression and Reception
This article presents an innovative methodology to study computer-mediated communication (CMC), which allows analysis of the multi-layered effects of online expression and reception. The methodology is demonstrated by combining the following three data sets collected from a widely tested eHealth system, the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS): 1) a flexible and precise computer-aided content analysis; 2) a record of individual…
Change is an emotional state of mind
Scholars are increasingly concerned about the rising level of negativity in social media sites. This negativity has found its way into sites that are supposedly intended for prosocial civic engagement. To examine how hostility impacts behavior in a user-generated, prosocial context, an experimental study was conducted using an online petition modeled after those posted to the website Change.org . This study examines whether negativity causes a co…
Political Fiction
This study draws attention to a largely overlooked, but crucial, facet of modern politics—the political e-mail. A mixed-method analysis of 1 year’s worth of political e-mails was used to compare and contrast how the Democratic and Republican parties employed e-mails during the 2014 election. Results reveal both parties placed a clear emphasis on fundraising and voter mobilization but also utilized distinct appeals, calls to action, and political …
Imagined Politics
This article examines political transportation—the construction of mental models that represent a political world and result in the absorption and positioning of oneself within the constructed world. Specifically, we propose that when citizens become immersed in the political narrative crafted by a politician, they become more likely to see the political world as personally relevant and, subsequently, become more committed to supporting that cand…
Cueing God
Scholars contend that correctly applying religious cues is crucial to winning political elections. This article examines the effect of general religious cues by conducting an experiment on a national sample (N = 520). Through the use of a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage, we examine how subtle and overt religious cues interact with citizen religiosity to affect political evaluations. The findings demonstrate that politicians who use o…
Identifying With a Stereotype
Scholars examining homosexual television characters have typically come to one of two conclusions: either exposure to homosexual characters can lead to increased acceptance, or homosexual characters serve to reaffirm negative stereotypes. We seek to bridge these two bodies of research by introducing the concept of stereotyped identification-the idea that cognitively and emotionally identifying with fictional characters can increase acceptance of …
Who Says What to Whom
Hostile-media-effect research has been built on the assumption that partisans are motivated to adjust their evaluations to accommodate preexisting attitudes that are especially sensitive to content. More recent literature, however, has suggested a rival hypothesis—that perceptions of media bias spring from social identity, keyed to source differences. To test these competing explanations, we designed an experiment around the teaching-alternatives…
Imagined Politics
This article examines political transportation—the construction of mental models that represent a political world and result in the absorption and positioning of oneself within the constructed world. Specifically, we propose that when citizens become immersed in the political narrative crafted by a politician, they become more likely to see the political world as personally relevant and, subsequently, become more committed to supporting that cand…
Emotions and Affective Polarization
In the context of an increasingly divided populace, this article considered how the emotions (enthusiasm and anxiety) partisans feel toward U.S. presidential candidates may heighten or diminish affective polarization. In Study 1 (American National Election Studies [ANES] 2008–2009 panel data), we found that enthusiasm for the in-group candidate and anxiety about the out-group candidate were related to higher levels of affective polarization, wher…
Becoming a Presidential Candidate
Political candidates increasingly use social media to tell their stories, share their thoughts and feelings and chronicle an unfolding election. We argue that the concept of identification—the process through which an audience member cognitively assumes the perspective of a media personality—can help illuminate how online campaigns can increase citizen support. This study employed a two-wave survey with a U.S. national sample conducted prior to t…
Conditioned by Race
While it is becoming increasingly clear that religious cues influence voter evaluations in the United States, work examining religious cues has largely overlooked the conditioning role of race. We employed a 2 × 2 (White candidate vs. Black candidate) × (racial cues vs. no racial cues) online experiment with a national sample (N= 397; 56% white, 46% black) where participants were exposed to a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage. Results …
The political world within
This paper considers how citizens process and experience political narratives. We start by providing a general overview of political narratives. Next, we discuss how citizens mentally represent narratives, how individual stories interact with pre-existing knowledge, and how citizens use diverse sources of information to construct seemingly cohesive mental models of the political story world. Third, we describe how citizens become transported into…
Leaving the Past (Self) Behind
Using a symbolic interactionist framework, this study considers the narratives of non-reporting rape survivors. We use interviews to examine the complex processes that inform a survivor's decision not to report. Rape is not interpreted as an isolated event; it is something that is seen as caused by, connected to, and affecting the survivor's sense of self and agency. Rape forces the survivor to reconstruct a sense of agency in the aftermath of th…
Stereotyped Identification
This article applies the concept of stereotyped identification—the idea that cognitively and emotionally identifying with fictional minority characters can simultaneously increase acceptance of minorities while reinforcing stereotypes about how they look, act, and talk—to the context of Latina television characters. Specifically, we employed a national survey measuring participants’ exposure to Latina TV characters; levels of identification with …
Political Fiction
This study draws attention to a largely overlooked, but crucial, facet of modern politics—the political e-mail. A mixed-method analysis of 1 year’s worth of political e-mails was used to compare and contrast how the Democratic and Republican parties employed e-mails during the 2014 election. Results reveal both parties placed a clear emphasis on fundraising and voter mobilization but also utilized distinct appeals, calls to action, and political …
Online political networks as fertile ground for extremism
This research note draws from the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), uncertainty-identity theory, and intergroup threat theory to investigate the conditions under which members of online political networks are likely to endorse extremism. Using a national survey of 717 U.S. adults who self-identify as members of an online group comprising politically like-minded others, we find that when perceived group threat is high, group…
Winning on Social Media
The 2016 US Presidential Election provided an opportunity to examine how political candidates' use of social media can affect voting intentions. This study considers how political candidates can use social media to increase potential supporters' perceptions that they will win the election, providing them extra motivation to go out and vote. Results from a two-wave survey provide evidence that following the in-group candidate (Trump or Clinton) re…
Expression and Reception
This article presents an innovative methodology to study computer-mediated communication (CMC), which allows analysis of the multi-layered effects of online expression and reception. The methodology is demonstrated by combining the following three data sets collected from a widely tested eHealth system, the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS): 1) a flexible and precise computer-aided content analysis; 2) a record of individual…
When women attack
The common assumption that female candidates on the campaign trail should not go on the attack, because such tactics contradict gender stereotypes, has not received consistent support. We argue that in some circumstances gender stereotypes will favor female politicians going negative. To test this proposition, this study examines how gender cues affect voter reactions to negative ads in the context of a political sex scandal, a context that shoul…
Restructuring
This paper argues for a cognitive psychological approach to second language phenomena that emphasizes the importance of the development of automaticity and the process of restructuring. It is argued that practice can leadimprovement in performance as sub-skills become automated, but it is also possible for increased practice to create conditions for restructuring, with attendant decrements in performance as learners reorganize their internal repr…
Cueing God
Scholars contend that correctly applying religious cues is crucial to winning political elections. This article examines the effect of general religious cues by conducting an experiment on a national sample (N = 520). Through the use of a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage, we examine how subtle and overt religious cues interact with citizen religiosity to affect political evaluations. The findings demonstrate that politicians who use o…
When women attack
The common assumption that female candidates on the campaign trail should not go on the attack, because such tactics contradict gender stereotypes, has not received consistent support. We argue that in some circumstances gender stereotypes will favor female politicians going negative. To test this proposition, this study examines how gender cues affect voter reactions to negative ads in the context of a political sex scandal, a context that shoul…
Who Says What to Whom
Hostile-media-effect research has been built on the assumption that partisans are motivated to adjust their evaluations to accommodate preexisting attitudes that are especially sensitive to content. More recent literature, however, has suggested a rival hypothesis—that perceptions of media bias spring from social identity, keyed to source differences. To test these competing explanations, we designed an experiment around the teaching-alternatives…
Conditioned by Race
While it is becoming increasingly clear that religious cues influence voter evaluations in the United States, work examining religious cues has largely overlooked the conditioning role of race. We employed a 2 × 2 (White candidate vs. Black candidate) × (racial cues vs. no racial cues) online experiment with a national sample (N= 397; 56% white, 46% black) where participants were exposed to a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage. Results …
Expression and Reception
This article presents an innovative methodology to study computer-mediated communication (CMC), which allows analysis of the multi-layered effects of online expression and reception. The methodology is demonstrated by combining the following three data sets collected from a widely tested eHealth system, the Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS): 1) a flexible and precise computer-aided content analysis; 2) a record of individual…
Change is an emotional state of mind
Scholars are increasingly concerned about the rising level of negativity in social media sites. This negativity has found its way into sites that are supposedly intended for prosocial civic engagement. To examine how hostility impacts behavior in a user-generated, prosocial context, an experimental study was conducted using an online petition modeled after those posted to the website Change.org . This study examines whether negativity causes a co…
Political Fiction
This study draws attention to a largely overlooked, but crucial, facet of modern politics—the political e-mail. A mixed-method analysis of 1 year’s worth of political e-mails was used to compare and contrast how the Democratic and Republican parties employed e-mails during the 2014 election. Results reveal both parties placed a clear emphasis on fundraising and voter mobilization but also utilized distinct appeals, calls to action, and political …
Imagined Politics
This article examines political transportation—the construction of mental models that represent a political world and result in the absorption and positioning of oneself within the constructed world. Specifically, we propose that when citizens become immersed in the political narrative crafted by a politician, they become more likely to see the political world as personally relevant and, subsequently, become more committed to supporting that cand…
Identifying With a Stereotype
Scholars examining homosexual television characters have typically come to one of two conclusions: either exposure to homosexual characters can lead to increased acceptance, or homosexual characters serve to reaffirm negative stereotypes. We seek to bridge these two bodies of research by introducing the concept of stereotyped identification-the idea that cognitively and emotionally identifying with fictional characters can increase acceptance of …
Stereotyped Identification
This article applies the concept of stereotyped identification—the idea that cognitively and emotionally identifying with fictional minority characters can simultaneously increase acceptance of minorities while reinforcing stereotypes about how they look, act, and talk—to the context of Latina television characters. Specifically, we employed a national survey measuring participants’ exposure to Latina TV characters; levels of identification with …
The political world within
This paper considers how citizens process and experience political narratives. We start by providing a general overview of political narratives. Next, we discuss how citizens mentally represent narratives, how individual stories interact with pre-existing knowledge, and how citizens use diverse sources of information to construct seemingly cohesive mental models of the political story world. Third, we describe how citizens become transported into…
Becoming a Presidential Candidate
Political candidates increasingly use social media to tell their stories, share their thoughts and feelings and chronicle an unfolding election. We argue that the concept of identification—the process through which an audience member cognitively assumes the perspective of a media personality—can help illuminate how online campaigns can increase citizen support. This study employed a two-wave survey with a U.S. national sample conducted prior to t…
Winning on Social Media
The 2016 US Presidential Election provided an opportunity to examine how political candidates' use of social media can affect voting intentions. This study considers how political candidates can use social media to increase potential supporters' perceptions that they will win the election, providing them extra motivation to go out and vote. Results from a two-wave survey provide evidence that following the in-group candidate (Trump or Clinton) re…
Leaving the Past (Self) Behind
Using a symbolic interactionist framework, this study considers the narratives of non-reporting rape survivors. We use interviews to examine the complex processes that inform a survivor's decision not to report. Rape is not interpreted as an isolated event; it is something that is seen as caused by, connected to, and affecting the survivor's sense of self and agency. Rape forces the survivor to reconstruct a sense of agency in the aftermath of th…
Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments
In contrast to previous years, enrollments in journalism and mass communication programs in the United States were relatively stable from 2015 to 2018. Although strategic communication sequences remained the most popular, the percentage of undergraduates enrolled in journalism sequences increased since the previous survey, whereas the percentage enrolled in strategic communication sequences decreased slightly. In addition, the demographic composi…
Emotions and Affective Polarization
In the context of an increasingly divided populace, this article considered how the emotions (enthusiasm and anxiety) partisans feel toward U.S. presidential candidates may heighten or diminish affective polarization. In Study 1 (American National Election Studies [ANES] 2008–2009 panel data), we found that enthusiasm for the in-group candidate and anxiety about the out-group candidate were related to higher levels of affective polarization, wher…
Examining teachers' intentions to intervene
Despite the growing prevalence of cyberbullying in India, there is a lack of empirical research available to guide school‐based interventions. Employing a survey of 402 teachers in Indian schools, the present study utilized the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a framework to examine the factors influential in encouraging teachers to intervene in school cyberbullying situations. The results reveal that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived …
Deliberating alone
In our research examining how people think and talk about immigration, we consistently find that people want to have a reasonable conversation about politics, but they often decide that productive conversations are not possible because other people are uninformed, irrational, close-minded, and uncivil. We argue that self-serving biases and phenomenological experiences lead to the biased perception that the self is far more capable of adhering to …
Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments
In contrast to 2018, the 2021 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments showed a decrease in undergraduate student enrollment in journalism and mass communication programs as well as decreases in the percentage of minority undergraduate and graduate students enrolled. In addition, it showed an increase in the percentage of programs reporting decreases in their operating budgets and increases in hiring freezes for faculty and staff. Th…
Caught in a Dangerous World
This study adds to the growing body of literature on problematic media behavior by introducing and explicating the concept of problematic news consumption, which we define as involving transportation, preoccupation, misregulation, underregulation, and interference. Using survey data from a national sample of U.S. adults, we examine the factor structure of a problematic news consumption measure, the existence of latent classes derived from the exp…
Can’t get no (life) satisfaction
This study explored whether boundary expansion is related to increased life satisfaction. In order to examine this possibility, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we used an experiment to promote either state boundary expansion or state escapism. Although the manipulation was unsuccessful, we did find a positive correlation between expansion and life satisfaction, while escape was not related to life satisfaction. Study 2 examined the relation…
There must be a villain
This study examined the role political villains play in individuals’ political imagination, which can then lead to political violence. When there is a threatening villain, partisans should become more likely to construct elaborate narratives about the political world, which can lead them to believe the violence against the opposition is justified. Study 1 uses a survey to provide evidence that exposure to partisan news sources cultivates the perc…
Online political networks as fertile ground for extremism
This research note draws from the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE), uncertainty-identity theory, and intergroup threat theory to investigate the conditions under which members of online political networks are likely to endorse extremism. Using a national survey of 717 U.S. adults who self-identify as members of an online group comprising politically like-minded others, we find that when perceived group threat is high, group…
Problematic News Consumption and Its Relationship to Mental and Physical Health
McLaughlin, Gotlieb, and Mills introduced the concept of problematic news consumption (PNC) in their 2023 study, finding that those classified as having severely problematic news consumption (16.5% of the sample) exhibited significantly greater levels of mental and physical ill-being. These results were the product of a single cross-sectional survey, however. Using a two-wave longitudinal survey, we sought to replicate their findings. In the curr…
Psychology (25 works) · Political science (21 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Social Media and Politics (18 works) · Politics (16 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Media Influence and Health (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Law (9 works)