The movie It Ends With Us reached millions of viewers. It is important to determine whether popular media changes IPV-accepting attitudes, like minimization and victim blaming. IPV victims who saw the movie reported less acceptance of coercive control and more abuse acceptance than victims who had not seen it. There were no differences among nonvictims. This suggests the movie was a flawed vehicle for IPV attitude change. Popular media represents an important mechanism of change for IPV-related social norms but requires rigorous assessment of effectiveness. Diversity concerns and potential negative impacts are of particular concern.
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Lynch et al. (2026) studied this question.
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