Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model

In this theoretical article, we introduce the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model (DSMM), a new, integrative model to improve our understanding of media effects. The DSMM organizes, integrates, and extends the insights developed in earlier microlevel media-effects theories. It distinguishes 3 types of susceptibility to media effects: dispositional, developmental, and social susceptibility. Using the analogy of a mixing console, the DSMM proposes 3 media response states that mediate media effects: cognitive, emotional, and excitative. The assumptions on which the DSMM is based together explain (a) why some individuals are more highly susceptible to media effects than others, (b) how and why media influence those individuals, and (c) how media effects can be enhanced or counteracted.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology

• Publication date

  2013-04-01

• Fields of study

  Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1111/JCOM.12024
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing

  2020influential reference
• Uses and Gratifications Research

  2019cited by this paper
• Disaster Media Effects: A Systematic Review and Synthesis Based on the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model

  2018cited by this paper
• Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth

  2017cited by this paper
• A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

  2017cited by this paper
• Media Effects: Theory and Research.

  2016cited by this paper
• Der dynamisch-transaktionale Ansatz. Ein neues Paradigma der Medienwirkungen

  2016cited by this paper
• Media Effects

  2013influential reference
• Mood Management: Theory, Evidence, and Advancements

  2013cited by this paper
• Comm Research—Views from Europe| Five Challenges for the Future of Media-Effects Research

  2013cited by this paper
• Validity of Adolescents’ Direct Estimates of Exposure to Media Violence in Three Types of Media

  2012cited by this paper
• Do You See What I See? Parent and Child Reports of Parental Monitoring of Media

  2012cited by this paper
• Desensitization to media violence: links with habitual media violence exposure, aggressive cognitions, and aggressive behavior.

  2011cited by this paper
• Online communication among adolescents: an integrated model of its attraction, opportunities, and risks.

  2011cited by this paper
• Psychophysiological Measurement and Meaning: Cognitive and Emotional Processing of Media

  2011cited by this paper
• Affective Context of Sadness and Physiological Response Patterns

  2011cited by this paper
• Conceptualizing Mass Media Effect

  2011cited by this paper
• Unconscious advertising effects

  2010cited by this paper
• Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in eastern and western countries: a meta-analytic review.

  2010cited by this paper
• Uniting the Tribes of Fluency to Form a Metacognitive Nation

  2009cited by this paper
• USES-AND-GRATIFICATIONS PERSPECTIVE ON MEDIA EFFECTS

  2009cited by this paper
• The Effects of Instant Messaging on the Quality of Adolescents’ Existing Friendships: A Longitudinal Study

  2009cited by this paper
• POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS

  2009influential reference
• The public health risks of media violence: a meta-analytic review.

  2009cited by this paper
• The Sage handbook of media processes and effects

  2009cited by this paper
• Adolescents' Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Notions of Women as Sex Objects: Assessing Causality and Underlying Processes

  2009cited by this paper
• INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN MEDIA EFFECTS

  2009cited by this paper
• WHERE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY MEETS THE MEDIA: Taking the Effects Out of Mass Media Research

  2009cited by this paper
• Media and Young Children's Learning

  2008cited by this paper
• Flow and immersion in first-person shooters: measuring the player's gameplay experience

  2008cited by this paper
• Age Differences in Adults' Emotional Motivations for Exposure to Films

  2008cited by this paper
• The Effects of Exposure to Virtual Child Pornography on Viewer Cognitions and Attitudes Toward Deviant Sexual Behavior

  2008cited by this paper
• Emotions at Work

  2007cited by this paper
• A Content Analysis of the Media Effects Literature

  2007influential reference
• Addressing Moderated Mediation Hypotheses: Theory, Methods, and Prescriptions

  2007cited by this paper
• Reinforcing Spirals: The Mutual Influence of Media Selectivity and Media Effects and Their Impact on Individual Behavior and Social Identity

  2007influential reference
• The experience of emotion.

  2007cited by this paper
• Affect is a form of cognition: A neurobiological analysis

  2007cited by this paper
• The Role of Information-Processing Capacity and Goals in Attitude-Congruent Selective Exposure Effects

  2007cited by this paper
• Temperament and Emotion Regulation.

  2007cited by this paper
• Handbook of emotion regulation

  2007cited by this paper
• Emotion regulation: Conceptual foundations

  2007cited by this paper
• Personal Influence and the Effects of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign

  2006cited by this paper
• Older Adults’ Television Viewing from a Life-Span Perspective: Past Research and Future Challenges

  2006cited by this paper
• Psychology of entertainment

  2006cited by this paper
• In Search of the Older Audience: Adult Age Differences in Television Viewing

  2006cited by this paper
• Television News Viewing, Governmental Scope, and Postmaterialist Spending: Assessing Mediation by Partisanship

  2005cited by this paper
• Enjoyment: At the Heart of Media Entertainment

  2004cited by this paper
• The Role of Media in Children's Development: An Ecological Perspective

  2004cited by this paper
• Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver's Processing Experience?

  2004cited by this paper
• Rereading David Morley’s The ‘Nationwide’ Audience

  2004cited by this paper
• Understanding Media Enjoyment: The Role of Transportation Into Narrative Worlds

  2004cited by this paper
• Theory and Research in Mass Communication

  2004cited by this paper
• Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion.

  2003cited by this paper
• The effects of television advertising on materialism, parent-child conflict, and unhappiness: A review of research

  2003cited by this paper
• Seven sins in the study of emotion: correctives from affective neuroscience.

  2003cited by this paper
• Media Consumption and Perceptions of Social Reality: Effects and Underlying Processes

  2002influential reference
• Mass Media Attitude Change: Implications of the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion

  2002cited by this paper
• Individual Differences in Media Effects

  2002cited by this paper
• Media effects : advances in theory and research

  2002cited by this paper
• Entertainment—Education and Elaboration Likelihood: Understanding the Processing of Narrative Persuasion

  2002influential reference
• Emotion, mood, and temperament: Similarities, differences--and a synthesis.

  2001cited by this paper
• Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communication

  2001cited by this paper
• Emotion knowledge in economically disadvantaged children: Self-regulatory antecedents and relations to social difficulties and withdrawal

  2001cited by this paper
• Parents Versus Peers

  2001cited by this paper
• Values, Communication Behavior, and Political Participation

  2001cited by this paper
• Children's likes and dislikes in entertainment programs.

  2000cited by this paper
• 此处“personality”译法探析

  2000cited by this paper
• Media entertainment: The psychology of its appeal.

  2000cited by this paper
• Relationships between media and audiences: prospects for audience reception studies

  1998cited by this paper
• A Feminist Analysis of Seventeen Magazine: Content Analysis from 1945 to 1995

  1998cited by this paper
• Gender and Self-Reported Sexual Arousal in Response to Sexual Stimuli: A Meta-Analytic Review

  1997cited by this paper
• DISPOSITIONAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE MOTIVATION : THE LIFE AND TIMES OF INDIVIDUALS VARYING IN NEED FOR COGNITION

  1996cited by this paper
• The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

  1995cited by this paper
• Media violence.

  1995cited by this paper
• Adolescent room culture: Studying media in the context of everyday life

  1995cited by this paper
• Parenting styles and conceptions of parental authority during adolescence.

  1995cited by this paper
• Measuring emotion: the Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential.

  1994cited by this paper
• Illusions of familiarity.

  1993cited by this paper
• Human Aggression

  1989influential reference
• Dimensions of Consumer Expertise

  1987cited by this paper
• Perception

  1986cited by this paper
• The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion

  1986cited by this paper
• Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory

  1985cited by this paper
• Some effects of thoughts on anti- and prosocial influences of media events: a cognitive-neoassociation analysis.

  1984influential reference
• Inter/Media: Interpersonal Communication in a Media World

  1983cited by this paper
• Social psychophysiology : a sourcebook

  1983cited by this paper
• The Ecology of Human Development

  1981cited by this paper
• Psychological Reactance: A Theory of Freedom and Control

  1981cited by this paper
• The “Mainstreaming” of America: Violence Profile No. 11

  1980cited by this paper
• The Nationwide audience : structure and decoding

  1980cited by this paper
• Interaction of media, cognition and learning

  1979cited by this paper
• Desensitization of children to television violence.

  1973cited by this paper
• The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign

  1968cited by this paper
• The effects of mass communication

  1960influential reference
• Handbook of Social Psychology.

  1955cited by this paper

• Risky online self-disclosure in adolescents: a meta-analytic review of predictors and outcomes

  2026cites this paper
• Social Media Use and Well-Being Across Adolescent Development.

  2026cites this paper
• Online racism, online mental health engagement, depression, and suicide risk among Asian American and Pacific Islander and Black American emerging adults

  2026cites this paper
• Adolescent social media use profiles: A longitudinal study of friendship quality and socio-motivational factors

  2026cites this paper
• From access to agency: Internet use, social networks, and the mental health of rural women in China.

  2026cites this paper
• Parental phubbing and adolescent short-form video addiction: the mediating role of self-control and the moderating role of parental psychological control

  2026cites this paper
• The relationship between social media use and adolescent inattention and impulsivity: A systematic review.

  2026cites this paper
• From playground to pixelground: integrating play and e-play for a balanced future of Generation Z and Alpha

  2026cites this paper
• Generative Artificial Intelligence Applications Use Among US Youth

  2026cites this paper
• For whom does online social support matter most? Exploring the joint moderating roles of depressive symptoms and physical functioning in the relationship between online social support and quality of life

  2026cites this paper
• What’s the optimal usage pattern? Latent profile analysis of Chinese young adults’ social networking site use and its association with subjective well-being

  2026cites this paper
• Social media and loneliness among young adults: a scoping review

  2026cites this paper
• The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Cosmetic Surgery Consideration: A Systematic Review and Three-Level Meta-Analysis

  2026cites this paper
• Adolescent technology use and affective well-being: Taking a more nuanced look

  2026influential citation
• Problematic Pornography Use and Psychological Distress in the USA: A Nationally Representative Study

  2026cites this paper
• Mental health content on tiktok: Associations with self-reported symptoms, perceived prevalence, and stigmatization of mental health conditions

  2026cites this paper
• Social Media Behaviors and Adjustment Correlates Among College Students: Moderating Roles of Gender and College Phase

  2026cites this paper
• Stressed or Flourishing? Profiles and Transitions of Adolescents’ Digital Experiences and Their Associations with Mental Health

  2026cites this paper
• The Influence of Tiktok Apps on the Development of Adolescent Social Identity: An Analysis Based on Social Identity Theory

  2026cites this paper
• To fear or to rejoice: Social media mindsets and their relationships to social media engagement, perceived connectedness, fear of missing out and joy of missing out

  2026cites this paper
• Longitudinal associations between adolescents’ smartphone distraction management during family time and their relationships with parents

  2026cites this paper
• Internet Exposure and Adolescent Depression: Unraveling the Roles of Appearance and Body Anxiety across Gender and Weight Groups

  2026cites this paper
• Changing the Game: Understanding the Role of Social Influence in Videogames to Generate New Ideas and Answer Old Questions

  2026cites this paper
• Adolescents’ engagement with screen media violence: A quantitative, cross-sectional study

  2026cites this paper
• The Contribution of Community Radio to Enhancing and Promoting Adult Education in North ‘A’, Zanzibar: A Case Study of Tumbatu FM

  2026cites this paper
• Youth social media age restrictions: examining Trans-Tasman media coverage of Australia’s social media ‘ban’

  2026cites this paper
• Social Media and Adolescent Mental Health: A Practical Approach.

  2026cites this paper
• From platforms to features: A cross-platform framework for Social Network Sites and mental health

  2026cites this paper
• Reducing social media use decreases loneliness regardless of gender or level of social comparisons in youth with anxiety and depression: A randomized controlled trial.

  2026cites this paper
• Caught in the daily scroll: How upward social comparison fuels daily anxiety during short video use among Chinese young adults

  2026cites this paper
• Achieving #Relationshipgoals: Exploring the Associations Between Exposure to Positively-Biased Portrayals of Romantic Relationships and Young Adults’ Romantic Outcomes

  2025cites this paper
• The Internalization of a Performance-Oriented Self-Concept Among Adolescents Through Their Favorite Music Artists

  2025cites this paper
• Online Pornography Consumption, Risky Behaviors, and Sexist Attitudes in Adolescence: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study

  2025cites this paper
• When School Walls Meet Emotional Hurdles: A Cross-Sectional Study on Alexithymia and School Refusal in High Schools

  2025cites this paper
• The influence of negativity in news coverage on governmental trust during the COVID-19 pandemic

  2025cites this paper
• Pornography Use and Adolescent Sexual Self-Concept: The Role of Pornography-Related Expectancies and Generalizations

  2025cites this paper
• Not a Bioweapon, or is it? The Role of Perceived Threats and Media Use in COVID-19 Misperceptions

  2025cites this paper
• Testimonial immigration narratives’ effects on identification, emotions and cognitions among different types of recipients

  2025influential citation
• “I Would Not Be This Version of Myself Today”: Elaborating on the Effects of Eudaimonic Gaming Experiences

  2025influential citation
• The Google family home. Smart speaker use in Dutch families and the impact of parents’ individual and contextual characteristics

  2025cites this paper
• Bidirectional associations between video game playing and ADHD symptoms among school-aged children

  2025cites this paper
• Help or hindrance: Examining disability media exposure, stigmatization, and support

  2025cites this paper
• Turning to Gen-AI as an empowerment tool for parents of teenage girls for conversations on online sexual harassment

  2025influential citation
• A longitudinal study of directly observed social media posting: Association with socioemotional well-being during the transition to high school

  2025cites this paper
• Venturing Beyond the Vote: Routes to Feeling Represented through Unelected Representation

  2025cites this paper
• “It strikes a chord within me”: a mixed-method exploration of existential resonance in eudaimonic entertainment experiences

  2025cites this paper
• Characterizing Adolescent Social Media Experiences and Links to Momentary Affect

  2025cites this paper
• Rethinking Tarde’s model in the social media era and digital news: The moderating role of proximity

  2025cites this paper
• ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: AN INTEGRATED VARIABLE-CENTERED AND PERSON-CENTERED ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

  2025cites this paper
• The relationship between passive social network site use and sub-threshold depression among college students: a moderated mediation model

  2025cites this paper
• Shaping children's digital futures: The role of parenting strategies in regulating children's technology use.

  2025cites this paper
• Aggressive Pornography, Hostility Toward Women, and Behavioral Activation System Traits are Differentially Associated With Intimate Partner Violence and Rape Myth Acceptance.

  2025cites this paper
• Association Between Smartphone Attachment and Mental Health in Adolescents.

  2025cites this paper
• Mental health risks of pandemic‐related media communication: The mediating roles of distinct types of perceived threat

  2025influential citation
• Passive social media use and depression among college students during public health emergencies: a chain mediation approach

  2025cites this paper
• Who fits the glass slipper? Adolescent dispositional profiles and their link with instant messaging social support and mental health.

  2025cites this paper
• Social competencies mediate relationships between styles of social media usage and psychosocial wellbeing.

  2025cites this paper
• A Scoping Review of User Characteristics Moderating the Relationship Between Use of Social Networking Sites and Mental Health

  2025influential citation
• Psychosocial adjustment and problematic internet use among emerging adults: A bidirectional relationship mediated by core self-evaluation

  2025cites this paper
• Attitudes towards AI counseling: the existence of perceptual fear in affecting perceived chatbot support quality

  2025cites this paper
• Assessing Belgian adolescents’ negative digital experiences in everyday life: The mundane digital harms scale

  2025cites this paper
• Advancing understanding of the role of the family media ecology on child anxiety and depression in middle childhood: What matters most?

  2025cites this paper
• Testing the bi-directional influence of media and identity: a longitudinal study of Muslim American adolescents

  2025cites this paper
• Does the Use of Short-form Video Platforms Increase the Occurrence of Eating Disorders in Adolescents? A Study Based on Sex Differences.

  2025cites this paper
• Lise Öğrencilerinin Problemli İnternet Kullanımı ile Karakter Güçleri ve Akademik Başarı Arasındaki İlişki

  2025cites this paper
• Sex differences in problematic pornography use among adolescents: a network analysis

  2025cites this paper
• Social Media and Substance Use Among Young Hispanic EDM Attendees: A Perspective on Prototype Perceptions

  2025influential citation
• Social Media Use and Depressive Symptoms During Early Adolescence

  2025cites this paper
• Narratives of Regret: How Anticipated Regret and Counterfactual Thinking Can Promote COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions in Unvaccinated Adults

  2025cites this paper
• Unveiling the Positivity Bias on Social Media: A Registered Experimental Study on Facebook, Instagram, and X

  2025cites this paper
• A harsher reality for adolescents with depression on social media

  2025cites this paper
• Peran Literasi Keuangan dan Literasi Keuangan Digital terhadap Inklusi Keuangan: Studi pada Nasabah Bank Syariah di Kota Tangerang dengan Media Sosial sebagai Moderator

  2025cites this paper
• The relationship between media multitasking and attention: a three-level meta-analysis

  2025cites this paper
• From likes to anxiety: The effect of social media usage and in-formation overload on university students’ mental health

  2025cites this paper
• Social media are many things: Addressing the components and patterns of adolescent social media use

  2025cites this paper
• Individual differences in the prediction of mental health by smartphone and Instagram use: the moderating role of extraversion and neuroticism

  2025influential citation
• iNews: A Multimodal Dataset for Modeling Personalized Affective Responses to News

  2025cites this paper
• Assessing the Role of Social Media in Shaping Quality of Interpersonal Communication among Students at Universities

  2025cites this paper
• News Media Use and Crime Perceptions: The Dual Role of Ideology

  2025influential citation
• The Interrelationships Between Adolescents’ Online Affective Perceptions and Momentary Affect: An ESM Study on Affective Social Media Use

  2025cites this paper
• The Digital Media-use Effects (d-MUsE) Model: A comprehensive framework for exploring/studying functional and dysfunctional effects on adolescent wellbeing

  2025cites this paper
• Problem gaming and adolescents' health and well-being: Evidence from a large nationally representative sample in Italy

  2025cites this paper
• Framed for You

  2025cites this paper
• Why does browsing social networking sites increase conspicuous consumption? The effects of relative deprivation and subjective socioeconomic status

  2025cites this paper
• The impact of nutrition labels on frozen food health awareness and purchase intention among Central Taiwanese consumers

  2025cites this paper
• Isolation despite hyper-connectivity? The association between adolescents’ mental health and online behaviours in a large study of school-aged students

  2025cites this paper
• Person-specific effects of women’s social media use on body image concerns: an intensive longitudinal study of daily life

  2025cites this paper
• The Relationship Between Social Media Usage and Aggressive Behavior Among Secondary School Students in Muallim District

  2025cites this paper
• Understanding the interplay between video game design features and dysregulated gaming patterns: A call to anchor future research directions in interactionist frameworks

  2025cites this paper
• Should educators be concerned? The impact of short videos on rational thinking and learning: A comparative analysis

  2025cites this paper
• Media Depictions of Minority Groups: A Meta-Analytic Review Examining the Effects of Positive and Negative Portrayals on Outgroup Evaluations

  2025cites this paper
• There is more than one way to engage in effective media parenting: An analysis of parenting with media in four world regions and associations with adolescent well-being

  2025cites this paper
• Augmented youth: Prevalence and predictors of AR filter use on social media among adolescents

  2025cites this paper
• Fast-paced and violent media exposure are positively associated with ADHD and impulsivity in college students

  2025cites this paper
• Exploring temporal dynamics in digital trace data: mining user-sequences for communication research

  2025cites this paper
• Adolescents’ Sexualized Self-Presentations on Social Media: A Cross-National Data Donation Study

  2025cites this paper
• Media violence exposure and aggressive behaviour among Chinese adolescents: the mediating role of rumination and the moderating role of trait empathy

  2025cites this paper
• Examining the Impact of Screen Time on Clinical Presentation and Symptom Severity in Children Diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Cross-sectional Study

  2025cites this paper
• Parents’ differential attitudes toward children’s media use by race and anxiety about children’s futures

  2025influential citation
• How (Gendered) Media Portrayals of Refugees Affect Attitudes Toward Immigration. The Moderating Role of Political Ideology

  2025cites this paper