Movies and television programs routinely feature violence, including everything from relatively minor scuffles to gory and gruesome encounters. The violent images in the mass media can be highly disturbing—they are often vivid and can be quite realistic. Moreover, violent depictions may produce unwanted consequences among viewers. Nevertheless, when it comes to entertainment, violence sells. Why would people knowingly expose themselves to images that are so horrific? Although this question has not received a great deal of attention, a number of theories have been offered to explain why individuals are attracted to violence in the mass media.

It should be noted that some of the theorizing that is relevant to this question comes from research that was designed to address similar, but different, issues. In fact, relatively little work has been conducted to determine what draws viewers to...