Young Adults' Retrospective Reports of Childhood Television Viewing

Abstract

Two studies investigated young adults' retrospective reports of childhood television viewing patterns. Prime-time TV schedules from several years prior to the assessment were presented to participants, who indicated how often they watched each program. Validity of the reports was assessed by examining the logical consistency in the reported patterns and measuring participants' recall of content from programs they reported to have watched often, occasionally, or never. As predicted, participants reported ecologically valid patterns of TV viewing and recalled more content from frequently viewed programs than from ones viewed less frequently. Accuracy of recalled content was very high. Test-retest reliability indicated very high consistency in TV-viewing reports across one week. Past overall viewing levels were related to a current measure of perceived realism in TV programs, indicating nomological validity of the measure. The discussion includes implications of a retrospective measure of early TV viewing for research on relationships between early media exposure and later psychological characteristics.