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Media Use and Gender Relationship to the Nightmare Protection Hypothesis: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

J. Gackenbach, Yue Yu, Ming-Ni Lee

Dreaming June 1, 2018 DOI: 10.1037/drm0000066 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational survey Peer reviewed
Population Chinese and Canadian survey respondents
Topics Dreaming
Key findings The authors argue that interdependence, rather than independence, accounts for cross-cultural differences in how media use relates to negative dream content, particularly among men in Greater China versus Canada. High social media use was linked to more bad dreams across sex and country, while gaming showed a three-way interaction with country and sex; judges' coding of dream threat and aggression was most sensitive to social media effects.

Abstract

Chinese and Canadian people answered surveys in their native languages about their self-construal, media use history, and dreaming experiences. This included reporting a recent dream. The nightmare protection thesis was investigated. Sex was found to be modulated by culture in terms of the relationship between types of media used and negative dream content. This was particularly evident for men in Greater China versus Canada along the self-construal dimension of interdependence. As both cultures reported no difference in independent self-construal, it was argued that it is the role of interdependence that accounts for male differences between cultures. In addition, each media type highlighted a different cultural value. Specifically, gaming seemed more consistent with independence, whereas social media was consistent with interdependence. When dreams were considered, source data were important. Specifically, when respondents answered in terms of their impressions of their dream history, high social media users reported more bad dreams across sex and country. However, for the video game groups, a 3-way interaction emerged where country, sex, and gaming evidenced different patterns of bad dream scores. The other self-report dream measure was emotions felt during a recent dream, with general negative and positive emotions showing group differences. Finally, the judges’ coding of negative elements of dreams, threat and aggression, was most sensitive to social media effects. Across all the threat simulation interactions where country was an independent variable, the male sex in each country was most likely to show opposite results from the female sex.

Comparable studies

Other cross-sectional and survey studies on dreaming, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
Insomnia Symptoms, Nightmares, and Suicidal Ideation in a College Student Sample Undergraduate students at a large, public university in the southeastern United States 2011 Observational cross-sectional survey n = 583
Prevalence and Correlates of Frequent Nightmares: A Community-Based 2-Phase Study Middle-aged Hong Kong Chinese adults from the community, mean age 40.9 years (SD 5.5,... 2010 Cross-sectional survey with subsequent clinical evaluation (two-phase design) n = 8,558
Factors of home dream recall: a structural equation model Adults (general population sample) 2003 Cross-sectional survey with structural equation modeling n = 444
The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey Respondents to an online survey about lucid dreams 2014 Online survey n = 684
Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Representative sample of German adults 2011 Cross-sectional survey n = 919

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