It may be difficult to not watch Snooki fall on her face while running drunk on a beach, but a new study suggests watching shows like "Jersey Shore" makes people dumber.
"It is, to our knowledge, the first (study) to show media priming effects of story characters on cognitive performance," the authors explain in the report, which was recently published in the journal Media Psychology.
Media priming is the idea that what we watch and listen to influences our behaviour. Participants are asked to read a fictional story and then take a general knowledge test.
The first group read a long version of a story about a "foolish soccer hooligan" who woke up, couldn't understand the message in an inspiration-of-the-day calendar, got drunk at a bar, went to a soccer game, got in a fight, came home and slept through the next day.
Other than the soccer game, not a far cry from a day in the life of the characters on "Jersey Shore".
The second group read a shorter version of the "foolish soccer hooligan" story and the third group read a boring story where the character does nothing foolish.
Participants then took a multiple-choice test where questions included: "What is the capital of Libya?" and "What kind of speed is expressed by the letter 'c' in physics?"
"Participants who read a narrative about a stupidly acting soccer hooligan performed worse in the knowledge test than participants who read a narrative about a character with no reference to his intellectual abilities," write the researchers.
In all fairness to the participants who didn't score well, they were not asked easier questions such as, "which 'Teen Mom' star was recently hospitalized?"
Professor emerita of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Joanne Cantor is not surprised.
"What you've been thinking about recently or seeing recently (is) at a higher level in your consciousness, so your brain is kind of predisposed in that direction," she tells The Body Odd blog. "So if you've just seen a movie about really altruistic people and you get an opportunity to behave altruistically, you'll probably do it, rather than if you've just seen a movie about selfish people."
(CP Photo of Snooki)
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