‘The world ain’t all sunshine’: Investigating the relationship between mean world beliefs, conservatism and crime TV exposure

Cultivation research argues that mean world beliefs are cultivated through media consumption. Our study expands this notion of cultivation research by integrating approaches from political psychology on conservatism and moral foundation theory, providing complementary explanations for mean world beliefs. Focusing on crime TV exposure and mean world beliefs, we expect both to be rooted in a conservative world view accentuated by the valuing of certain moral foundations. Participants (N = 455) took part in a paper-pencil survey design to test three hypotheses regarding the interplay of conservatism, cultivation and mean world beliefs in the context of crime TV exposure. Results indicate evidence for both a significant relationship between conservative moral orientations and mean world beliefs and crime TV choice. Nevertheless, these relationships might suppress the influence of TV crime exposure. Implications for cultivation research are discussed.