Positivity and Reward Orientation in Reactions to Extraterrestrial Microbial Life: Evidence from Media Analyses and Experimental Studies

To the point

Researchers Jung Yul Kwon, Hannah L. Bercovici, Katja Cunningham, and Michael E. W. Varnum find that both imagined and real media coverage of extraterrestrial microbial life prompts predominantly positive, reward-oriented responses, with large effects across analyses and little systematic influence from demographics or personality, though cross-cultural replication and generalizability beyond the United States are advised.