Archive | 2021
Cooling Down or Charging Up?
Abstract
This chapter argues that the selection of, and engagement with, aggressive entertainment contents can be an emotion regulation strategy, or a way of influencing the nature, expression and intensity of an experienced emotion. It explains this in the context of two, often experienced, negative emotions that have been linked to aggression in the general emotion literature: anger and boredom. By first defining these two emotions and describing their typical action tendencies, it aims to show how the engagement with aggressive media content can be a way of regulating these emotions, sometimes in functional but also in dysfunctional ways. It thereby extends the scope from passively watching aggressive entertainment contents to actively participating and enjoying aggressive acts in the online environment (e.g., online bashing, trolling and cyberbullying).