Does True Crime Increase Negative Affect, Or Negative Affect Lead to True Crime? A Cross-lagged Analysis on the Dynamics of Consuming Frightening Media

Even in today’s high-choice media landscape, people are drawn to stories of crime and murder, best exemplified by the massive appeal of the true crime genre. Interestingly, while studies report negative effects of violent media on consumers, newer avenues in horror research suggest that frightening media may act as training grounds for coping with anxiety. We investigated both perspectives in a two-week daily diary study on positive and negative affect (anxiety, anger) and true crime consumption (data collected in 2024). Cross-lagged multilevel modelling (Bayesian estimation) was applied to data of n = 199 participants to examine if affect on day n predicted true crime consumption on the following day (n + 1) and vice versa. We found that today’s anxiety positively predicted violent true crime consumption of tomorrow, and in turn, violent true crime consumption of today positively predicted positive affect of tomorrow. These findings corroborate the idea that anxiety may motivate engagement with self-relevant negative media worlds like true crime for emotion regulation, which may yield affective benefits. Conversely, we did not find that true crime consumption increased anxiety or anger, which adds nuances to the idea of fear and aggression cultivation by crime portrayals in the media.