Book of Abstracts

In current media, violent imagery has become increasingly prevalent – not only as a way of conveying information, but also as a tool for capturing attention and evoking emotional responses. This widespread presence of violence in the media raises important questions about why certain individuals are particularly drawn to such content. In presented own research we examined psychological factors underlying fascination with media violence, focusing on empathy and personality-based traits captured by the Dark Tetrad: machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. Results showed that lower levels of empathy are associated with greater fascination with media violence. Dark Tetrad traits also correlated with both low levels of empathy and higher levels of interest in violent content. Moreover, the strongest association with fascination with violence was observed for sadism. Additionally, men and younger people were found to have higher levels of interest in media violence than women and older people. The findings underscore the importance of individual differences in the reception of media violence and highlight the need to consider personality traits in educational and preventive efforts targeting those vulnerable to violent content.