THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOSITY ON TELEVISION VIEWING

As a social-psychological attribute affecting attitudes and behavior, religiosity should influence television use. We expected religious conservatives and non-conservatives to differ in viewing motives, watching programs containing sex and violence, and TV attitudes. We administered questionnaires to 346 religious conservatives, moderates and liberals. Analyses of covariance and partial correlations suggested that, as compared with non-conservatives, conservatives were less motivated to watch television because of sexual appeal of characters, watched fewer programs with sexual content and felt television was less important in their lives.