About

Mary Beth Oliver is the Donald P. Bellisario Professor of Media Studies and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State University. She teaches courses on media effects, communication research, quantitative research methods, and interpersonal communication. Her academic specialization lies in the intersection of media and psychology, with a focus on both the psychological effects of media and the factors that attract viewers to or enhance their enjoyment of media content. Oliver's research encompasses a variety of topics including media violence, reality-based television programs, gender differences in media entertainment enjoyment, viewers' responses to melodramas and sad films, as well as media portrayals of racial groups and the subsequent impact of these portrayals on viewers' racial attitudes.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Epistemology
• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Psychotherapist
• Psychoanalysis
• World Wide Web

Selected publications

• Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2025-07-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract Media entertainment provides audiences countless opportunities for fun, relaxation, and escape, but it can also trigger moments of reflection, insight into the human condition, inspiration, and contemplation of life’s purpose. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of the latest scientific research on the latter: eudaimonic media experiences. To do so, they introduce two-factor models of entertainment, which differentiate eudaimonic and hedonic media experiences. Next, they identify and describe three broad types of media encounters previously found to be meaningful to audiences: cognitive and emotional challenges, biographically relevant situations, and reflections on time. The authors then discuss appreciation as an experiential outcome associated with such meaningful media encounters, as well as additional potential benefits including greater well-being, resilience, connectedness, and prosocial motivations. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of individual-level differences in motivations to seek out eudaimonic media experience as well as challenges and opportunities for future research.

  PublisherDOI

• Inspiring the Nones?: Exploring Self-Transcendent Media Use and Outcomes Among the Religiously Unaffiliated

  Journal of Media and Religion · 2025-10-26

  articleOpen access

  More than one in four U.S. adults now claim no religious affiliation, representing a 460% increase in religious “nones” since 1972. However, despite a recent spate of studies on self-transcendent media experiences, media scholars have paid little attention to this trend. Data from two waves (nWave1 = 2,016; nWave2 = 1,544) of a nationally representative panel survey facilitated the first exploration of transcendence-related media experiences and well-being outcomes among religiously affiliated and unaffiliated individuals.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

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

  Human Communication Research · 2025-05-12 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Research demonstrates how entertainment can promote self-exploration and coping through portrayals that resonate with audiences on concrete, biographical levels (i.e., social resonance). We contend that entertainment can also foster resonance through abstract content and themes that celebrate aspects of an individual’s global meaning system (i.e., existential resonance). We first tested this idea through a thematic analysis of personal essays (n = 54) describing eudaimonic experiences with films featuring portrayals of moral beauty. The results provided initial support for our contention, revealing that many respondents resonated exclusively with themes that venerated their core values. Inspired by the qualitative insights from Study 1, we examined the intercorrelations among moral identity, existential resonance, elevation, and the moral ideal self in a second study (online survey; n = 236). The findings revealed significant positive intercorrelations, offering preliminary insights into potential upward spirals of moral functioning in the context of positive media psychology.

  PublisherDOI

• Implications of Shifts in Dominant Mediums on Media-Induced Feelings of Connectedness

  Asian Communication Research · 2024-02-26 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  \n Contains fulltext :\n 306240.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)\n

  PublisherDOI

• Psychological insight as an effect of inspiring narratives: validating the psychological insight self-report scale

  Human Communication Research · 2024-12-20 · 2 citations

  article

  Abstract This article presents the results of two experiments in which participants were exposed to audiovisual narratives (Study 1, N = 245) and to short written narratives (Study 2, N = 360) with high or low inspiring potential so as to validate a measurement instrument to assess psychological insight (Psychological Insight Self-Report Scale). Insight is defined as a reception process involving sudden discovery and the sensation of experiencing a state of enlightenment or inner revelation through exposure to inspiring narratives. The results of our research confirm the structural, criterion, construct, and incremental validity of the scale. Our work furthers the advancement of media entertainment research regarding the impact of eudaimonic messages by providing a new construct (psychological insight) to explain the effects of inspiring narratives.

  PublisherDOI

• Reflecting on 50 years of theory in<i>Human Communication Research</i>: where do we go from here

  Human Communication Research · 2024-02-23 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This essay is an introduction to the special issue on “Rethinking and Expanding Communication Theories on HCR’s 50th Anniversary.” We begin by arguing that communication research has expanded substantially since Human Communication Research’s inaugural issue. However, in light of changes in communication technologies, political discourse, means of engaging in interpersonal communication, and awareness of the importance of diversity and inclusion, this special issue takes note of our current theorizing and ways to build as we look toward the future. The essays in this special issue, reviewed in this article, will undoubtedly prompt us to re-think, re-envision, and renew our commitment to the importance of communication theory, both in terms of where we have been and in terms of where we can progress.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Beyond the denial of death: death meditation increases a sense of connectedness and appreciation of life

  Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2024-11-28 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Introduction: The pervasive denial of death in modern society has created an unbalanced relationship with death that gets in the way of living a full life. To address this problem, the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death recently proposed principles of a healthier scenario for the future. In this 'realistic utopia', death is recognized as having value, and conversations about death and dying have become common. The present research examined if art could help to decrease death denial and increase life appreciation. Methods: =229) at two time points. Feelings of being moved, connectedness to a higher power, and life appreciation were assessed immediately (T1); death reflection and life appreciation were assessed two weeks later (T2) (N=105). Results: At T1, the art installation induced higher levels of being moved and connectedness to a higher power than the two control groups. At T2, the art installation induced more lingering reflection than the two control groups. Lingering reflection, in turn, increased appreciation of life. Discussion: We show that art can be harnessed to promote a more balanced relationship with death, and greater appreciation of life. The art installation provided individuals with concrete, and more encompassing simulations of what death could be like. By placing death in this bigger perspective, the art installation encouraged conscious death reflection. Such a connected perspective is often lacking, but direly needed, in healthcare and in larger society.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Morality and Media

  2023-08-24 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Issues of morality have played an important role in many theories of media psychology. Early research was based on cultivation theory and focused on how media consumption affects viewers negatively. More recently, the movement toward positive media psychology is an attempt to understand how media can be harnessed for prosocial ends. This chapter provides an overview of research in media and positive psychology. It focuses on the role of elevation, or inspiration, in media viewing. Elevation is an emotion that occurs when we witness acts of great moral beauty. One challenge for media psychology is that elevation is not elicited uniformly in viewers. Although such research focuses on how elevation may elicit mental and emotional states rather than long-term traits, it is plausible that such elevation or inspiration relates to the long-term trait of moral understanding.

  PublisherDOI

• Awesome, Awful: Emotional Flow in Environmental Messaging

  Media Psychology · 2023-12-26 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Pro-environmental media content, such as nature documentary programming, often features awe-inducing scenes of Earth's natural beauty, and exposure to this kind of content has been shown to increase persuasive outcomes. Yet environmental messaging is increasingly likely to portray the tragic impacts of human activities on these natural wonders alongside content about Earth's beauty. How might emotional responses evolve during exposure to sequenced messages that juxtapose positively-valenced (beauty) and negatively-valenced (negative impacts) pro-environmental content? Embracing an emotional flow perspective as our overarching lens, we put forth two accounts for how emotions might shift during sequenced messaging: contrast effects and the elicitation of poignancy. We tested these accounts in a between-subjects experiment with U.S. adults (N = 979), following a 5 (focus: beauty-only, impacts-only, beauty→impacts, impacts→beauty, or control) × 2 (topic: coral reefs or forests) design. We found no evidence for contrast effects in discrete emotion intensity (awe, hope, sadness, or fear). The sequenced messages evoked greater poignancy than the static messages, which in turn predicted greater intentions to share the message. Although the sequenced messages indirectly predicted sharing intentions and policy support via several other emotion-based mechanisms, these outcomes did not differ between the static and sequenced conditions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Media Effects Research in <i>Journalism &amp; Mass Communication Quarterly</i>

  Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · 2023-12-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article presents an analysis of media effects articles published in JMCQ from 1954 to 2020. Although the primary focus of our sample of articles focused on news, a wealth of additional topics were also examined, including attitude change, media selection, and sharing of media content. While some of this body of scholarship reflects more “traditional” conceptualizations of media effects research, others point to a broader conceptualization that reflects individuals as active in their selection, processing, evaluation, and even creation of media content.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Arthur A. Raney

  University at Buffalo, State University of New York

  29 shared

• Srividya Ramasubramanian

  Syracuse University

  19 shared

• Anne Bartsch

  Leipzig University

  18 shared

• Sophie H. Janicke‐Bowles

  Chapman University

  17 shared

• Celnisha L. Dangerfield

  16 shared

• Julia K. Woolley

  California Polytechnic State University

  16 shared

• Ronald L. Jackson

  University of Illinois Chicago

  16 shared

• Ndidi N. Moses

  Pennsylvania State University

  16 shared

Labs

• Media Effects Research LabPI

  Investigates social and psychological effects of technological elements unique to web-based mass-communication.

Education

• Ph.D., Communication

  University of Southern California

  1992

• M.A., Communication

  University of Southern California

  1988

• B.A., Communication Studies

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1985

Awards & honors

• Penn State professor earns national Deutschmann Award for Ex…