Truecrime

## Details related to access to the data

No data user agreement

- Contact person

Corinna Perchtold-Stefan, [e-mail], ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8334-0574
Christian Rominger, [e-mail], ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3195-4555

## Overview

Project name: Horror as creative emotion regulation – Can true crime consumption help boost adaptive coping with fear and stress?
Years: 01.01.2023 to 31.05.2024
Funding: Country of Styria, 2022 Call “Unconventional Science”, P11928
Ethics vote: University of Graz, Austria, GZ. 39/4/63 ex 2022/23

Relevant behavioral data are available at https://osf.io/phx9d/.

- [ ] Brief overview of the tasks in the experiment

The neuroscience data is part of a larger research project on the psychology and neuroscience of people’s interest in true crime – the narration of real-life crime stories in various media (books, podcasts, movies, TV, news). The main goal of the project is to provide a first, in-depth investigations of cognitive, affective, social, and brain correlates of true crime consumption with a particular focus on motives, traits, and perceptions of true crime consumers as well as potential consequences of true crime consumption with regard to well-being and mental health.
Additionally, this study is used as an overarching investigations of aspects influencing behavior and well-being in daily life, including measures of creativity, emotion regulation, the experience of meaningful coincidences, curiosity, also with regard to potential interindividual differences regarding gender, age, or socioeconomic background.

- [ ] Contents of the dataset

- [ ] Variables

All questionnaires were administered in German.
 Demographic data (gender, age, education, income, relationship status, living area, psychiatric/neurological diagnosis)
 True crime consumption and motivations (McDonald et al., 2021)
 Morbid curiosity (Scrivner, 2021)
 Big-5 personality (Rammstedt et al., 2013)
 Dark triad (Malesza et al., 2019)
 Depressive symptoms (Hautzinger & Bailer, 1993)
 Trait anxiety (Spielberger, 2001)
 Perceived stress (Klein et al., 2016)
 Resilience (Chmitorz et al., 2018)
 Worry and Paranoid Worry (Freeman et al., 2019)
 Aggression (Bryant & Smith, 2001)
 Meaningful coincidences (Bressan, 2002)
 Likelihood of victimization (Kerestly, 2021)
 Media preferences (Scrivner, 2021)
 Cognitive emotion regulation (Loch et al., 2011)
 Cognitive reappraisal capacity (Weber et al., 2014)
 Malevolent creativity (Perchtold-Stefan et al., 2021)

(see https://osf.io/phx9d/)

## Methods

### Subjects

N = 133 for MRI

Participants were recruited on university campus, through advertisements via press reports, social media, and mailing lists. Participants were recruited for a larger study in true crime consumption, and could in the context of this study also take part in the MRI scan.
The only exclusion criteria for study participation was previous experience with the performance tasks (cognitive reappraisal capacity, malevolent creativity).

### Task organization

No tasks during MRI – only structural scan sand resting-state scans
Tasks outside of MRI: Brief online assessment (~ 10 min), in person behavioral testing at the University (~ 2 hours)

### Additional data acquired

See above

### Experimental location

University of Graz, Austria, and Technical University of Graz, Austria

### Missing data

Since this study was realized in multiple parts, not all data is available from all participants.
In total, MRI scans of n = 133 participants were acquired
From these participants, data from n = 2 participants had to be removed to due data quality and no behavioral and questionnaire data.
Data of n = 101 participants is available for extended demographic data, Big-5 personality, dark triad, worry and paranoid worry, meaningful coincidences, likelihood of victimization, media preferences, and cognitive emotion regulation