• eMaxHealth / OSU.edu, Thursday, April 13, 2006 12 PM

A study at Ohio State University reveals that men and women sometimes rely on media to help regulate their moods, and that--are you surprised?--they use them differently. "When men and women are angry, they both choose the news media articles they read with the goal of regulating their moods," reports Ohio State, but "in some circumstances men choose to read articles that will fuel their anger, while women choose articles that will dissipate it." Researchers discovered that when men were angered and anticipated the chance to retaliate, they chose to read negative online news stories, presumably to sustain their anger until their opportunity to get even. Faced with the same situation, however, women chose to read more positive news to help dissipate their anger before a possible confrontation. "For women, it is not seen as appropriate for them to retaliate when they are angry, but it is OK for men. And that's reflected in their selection of media content," says Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State. "This shows that even our news consumption is not motivated just by information concerns. We use news to regulate our moods."

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