ABSTRACT
Just as the behavioral effects have behavioral mechanisms, the cognitive effects of television have cognitive mechanisms based on the structure of attitudes, beliefs, and judgments, and on the way in which these cognitive structures are acquired. A series of studies provide evidence for a small but significant influence of television's content on attitudes and beliefs about the real world. Violence is not the only distortion of the content of television, and so the "mean world syndrome" is not the only kind of influence we would expect on attitudes and values. The effects of mainstreaming, of the content of television influencing the beliefs of real people about the world, are not confined to the characterization of violence. Personal and societal level judgments are independent of one another, and that a media intervention, such as watching a television show about nursing home abuse, changed societal level judgments but not personal level judgments.
