When Emotions Guide Adolescents’ Media Use: The Role of Peer Rejection and Moral Flexibility in Preferences for Antisocial Media Content

This dissertation examines why adolescents are attracted to audiovisual media that portray antisocial, risky, and norm-violating behaviours, such as violence, bullying, drug use, rude language, and inappropriate sexual conduct. Adolescents grow up in a media-saturated environment where such content is widely accessible on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Short clips from mature-rated series, such as Squid Game, as well as user-generated videos featuring dangerous stunts, pranks, or illegal acts, are frequently shared among peers. Although prior research has examined potential effects of exposure to antisocial media content, findings remain mixed, and the reasons why adolescents are attracted to such content are still insufficiently understood. This dissertation addresses this gap by investigating how socioemotional developmental factors, particularly peer rejection, emotional responses, emotion regulation, and moral judgment, shape adolescents’ preferences for antisocial media content. The theoretical framework integrates insights from media and developmental research. Media theories highlight the role of emotions and moral evaluations in media selection and enjoyment, while developmental research shows that adolescence is marked by heightened emotional sensitivity to peer experiences and ongoing development of emotion regulation and moral reasoning. Peer rejection is relatively common during this period and often evokes strong emotions such as anger and frustration, which may influence how adolescents morally evaluate behaviours portrayed in media and increase the appeal of antisocial content. To assess adolescents’ preferences and moral evaluations, a new instrument was developed and validated: the Media, Morality and Youth Questionnaire (MMaYQue). Validation with two independent adolescent samples showed that the questionnaire reliably measures two related constructs, media preferences and moral evaluations, and demonstrates strong psychometric properties. A series of empirical studies examined how peer rejection influences adolescents’ attraction to antisocial media. Experimental findings revealed that peer-rejected adolescents reported higher levels of anger and frustration, which led to more lenient moral judgments about antisocial media portrayals and stronger preferences for such content. This pattern was not observed in young adults, suggesting that the mechanism is specific to adolescence. Peer norms also played a role: supportive peer feedback increased adolescents’ preferences for antisocial media, whereas disapproval reduced it. However, rejected adolescents remained morally permissive regardless of peer feedback. Further studies replicated these findings using different methods and showed that peer rejection indirectly increases preferences for antisocial media through negative emotions and more permissive moral evaluations. Gender differences emerged, with boys reporting stronger anger responses to rejection, although these effects were moderated by educational ability. Finally, results indicated that anger, particularly when regulated through blaming others, predicted more permissive moral judgments and stronger preferences for antisocial media, whereas anxiety did not. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that adolescents’ engagement with antisocial media content is shaped by the interaction between emotional experiences, peer dynamics, and moral flexibility. The findings highlight the importance of considering the developmental context of adolescence when studying media use and suggest that media literacy programs and supportive guidance from parents and educators may help adolescents engage with media in healthier ways.