Psychological escapism: Predicting the amount of television viewing by need for cognition

Germans spend an average of more than 3 hours watching television each day. Among them, there are many who turn on their TV sets for less than 1.5 hou rs a day, and others who do this for more than 8 hours a day. What accounts for these differences? The central thesis in this paper is that individual s may be distinguished by their attitude toward thinking and that differenc es in their need for cognition explain the differences in their time spent with TV. The lower viewers' need for cognition is, the less pleasant they f eel when they have nothing to do because there is nothing left to do but th ink. The easiest way for individuals to escape this pressure to think is by watching TV. Thus, individuals will watch more TV when they have a lower n eed for cognition. Results of a survey study show that the concept of escap ism proves to be useful in explaining TV use when it takes over a psycholog ical perspective as well as a sociological one.