Affluenza Revisited: Casting Doubt on Cultivation Effects

The researchers use three secondary analyses to explore further the affluenza claims linking amount of television viewing with consumerist/materialist values and affluenza symptoms such as life dissatisfaction. Those links were generally supported by multiple regression analysis, though at low levels of explanatory power. Heavy news viewing ran in the opposite direction, with heavy TV news viewing correlated with less consumerist values. The authors also found that viewing by streaming on portable devices did not show affluenza correlations. These findings suggest that active audience program selectivity plays a broader role than that envisioned by cultivation theory.