About

Brett Sherrick is an associate professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University and the co-founder and co-director of the Purdue Research In Media Effects (PRIME) Lab. His primary research interests include entertainment media, media psychology, and media industries, with a focus on how video games and other media can improve the lives of media consumers. He has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and was named a Promising Professor by the Mass Communication and Society Division at the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Sherrick's work examines these topics from a social scientific perspective, emphasizing the potential positive impacts of media.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Literature
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Art
• Mechanics
• Cognitive psychology
• Advertising
• Epistemology
• Business

Selected publications

• Serious Gaming

  2026-02-03

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Video games are increasingly common in people's social lives. People often play games to engage with and learn about others. Many games require social cognition of other players or characters within the game, and games have several potential social effects. Importantly, the social settings inherent to games might operate differently than other communicative or social settings, since game rules often separate games from other parts of people's lives and because players are often represented in games by unique social actors (avatars). These and other characteristics of video games make them an intriguing venue in which to study and understand social cognition. Thus far, games researchers have mostly relied on existing scholarship on social cognition (e.g., Social Cognitive Theory, priming and stereotyping), but they have also invented new ways to understand social cognition (i.e., the Proteus effect), which take advantage of games’ unique characteristics to advance understanding of human sociality.

  PublisherDOI

• How Voice Chat, Cooperativeness, and Competitiveness Impact Prosocial and Antisocial Norms in Multiplayer Online Video Games

  Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media · 2025-12-22

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Difficulty and Challenge in Video Games

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication · 2024-08-21 · 5 citations

  reference-entrySenior author

  Video game difficulty relates to several other key concepts in the study of games. Defined here as the player perception of the barriers that stand in the way of completing game tasks, difficulty is a perceptual variable that reflects both designed features and unintentional barriers as well as player skill. Employing this definition can help better elucidate difficulty as a player-focused experience that varies between players, whereas other terms, including challenge and task, can be used to describe design features. Difficulty is related to other concepts, such as demands, flow, and competency, and empirical research has not always effectively differentiated these ideas. Demands represent player understanding of intended challenges. They may be understood differently by different players but are not defined in terms of player mastery. Flow includes a central idea of skill–challenge balance but is also suggested to involve other experiences. Competency may have a non-linear relationship with difficulty, but further research is needed. Measurement of difficulty is still developing, and existing scales that reflect other concepts need further modification or replacement to directly capture difficulty as defined here. Scholarship shows that difficulty is influenced by game features, contextual factors, and individual differences. Aspects such as the complexity of tasks, pace of play, or precision of necessary actions can all amplify the experience of difficulty, as can the consequences for failure. Unusual or unfamiliar controls can amplify difficulty, as can social pressures. Prior research shows that difficulty and challenge influence psychological responses, learning, enjoyment, and other outcomes. Optimal difficulty should involve a moderate level of the variable, but evidence is mixed about where that optimal state exists and often suggests a simple, negative relationship between difficulty and positive experiences. Some advocates have suggested that games encourage players to embrace difficulty in education and other tasks, potentially increasing learning, but evidence is mixed. Specific traits that would make players more tolerant of difficulty remain to be identified. Improved standardization in vocabulary and study design when studying difficulty would be fruitful.

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• When Melody and Graphics Converge: Background Music Congruency as Predictor of Video Game Enjoyment and Appreciation

  Media Psychology · 2024-12-16 · 3 citations

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• How nature- and humanity-based awe experiences in video games can differentially lead to hedonic and eudaimonic outcomes

  Communication Monographs · 2024-09-05 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• Predicting the financial and viewership success of livestreamers

  Journal of Media Business Studies · 2024-02-29 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Through three studies, this paper examines the success of livestreamers, as a function of presentation style (e.g. with or without webcam) triggering parasocial interactions. First, a content analysis confirms that successful livestreamers use voice/webcam features, and those features correlate with increased viewers and followers. Then, an experiment shows that viewers who can hear/see the livestreamer's voice/webcam report more enjoyment of and support for the livestreamer. Finally, another content analysis confirms that the parasocial presentation style (i.e. with a webcam) is indicative of increased viewers and followers, even when considering two-way social interaction (i.e. naming audience members). In sum, although livestreaming allows two-way interaction, success for livestreamers may be driven by appearing rather than being social. The manuscript focuses on Twitch given its prominence in esports and livestreaming.

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• The roles of congruity, narrative, and identification in sustainability messaging

  Communication Research Reports · 2022-01-22

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This study investigates how advertising-based sustainability messaging is influenced by message-source congruity, narrative engagement, and identification. Using two experimental designs, the results show that sustainability messaging improves evaluations of sources that are congruent with sustainability messaging, when compared to sources that are not. Featuring groups of people – rather than an individual – in these messages may work to further magnify those positive evaluations (Study 1). Most interestingly, while narrative messaging was not on-the-whole more persuasive, a message presented in narrative form appears effective in overcoming message-source incongruity in the context of sustainability-focused advertisements.

  PublisherDOI

• Consumer Responses to Covert Marketing Communications: A Case of Native Advertising Disclosure in News Contexts

  Journal of Promotion Management · 2022 · 12 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Advertising
  • Computer Science

  This study examines how the language clarity and visual prominence of disclosures about native advertising impact consumer responses to native advertising. Drawing on the persuasion knowledge model’s (PKM) change of meaning principle and the covert advertising recognition and effects (CARE) model, an experiment with 600 U.S. adult internet users shows that (a) use of “advertisement” (vs. “brand voice”) strengthens perceived sponsorship transparency and subsequent advertising evaluations, (b) perceived sponsorship transparency transforms the negative indirect effect of use of “advertisement” (vs. “brand voice”) to positive, and (c) this positive indirect effect is enhanced during high prominence disclosure. In short, if consumers see clear and conspicuous ad disclosure for native advertising, they infer the advertiser’s credibility, but this perception can improve persuasive effectiveness if the advertiser is seen as transparent. The theoretical, managerial, and social implications are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• How Parasocial Phenomena Contribute to Sense of Community on Twitch

  Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media · 2022-11-29 · 19 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This paper investigates how parasocial phenomena can improve community strength on the livestreaming site Twitch, adding to existing research that has shown viewers who engage in parasocial interactions and/or relationships with Twitch livestreamers experience a variety of positive effects. A survey of Twitch viewers shows that feelings of PSI and PSR are positively associated with a beneficial sense of community. A second, experimental study suggests that livestreamers can engender communal feelings by encouraging parasociality with their audience. These studies suggest that parasocial phenomenon may be key not only to viewer experience but also to the viewer’s sense of community.

  PublisherDOI

• The impact of casual gameplay on health attitudes and behaviors: examining persuasion in a branded game about nutrition through narrative, gameplay, and flow

  Atlantic Journal of Communication · 2022-09-13

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This project tests the ability of narrative and gameplay to persuade in a casual health game, through two experimental studies. Study 1 (N = 212) explores how independently manipulated narrative and gameplay factors can persuade people to have healthier attitudes and behavioral intentions; Study 2 (N = 353) also investigates how narrative and gameplay (difficulty) factors might improve attitudes and behavioral intentions toward an in-game brand. Both studies consider the role of flow, an immersive and inherently rewarding psychological state, as potential mediators between game factors and persuasive outcomes. In both studies, results show improvement in both attitudes and behavioral intentions toward health and the brand; however, the cause of those changes is not clear, as the manipulated narrative and gameplay factors do not influence the persuasive outcomes, and the mediating variable flow influences the persuasive outcomes inconsistently.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Mike Schmierbach

  8 shared

• Jennifer Hoewe

  7 shared

• Frank E. Dardis

  Pennsylvania State University

  5 shared

• Ryan Rogers

  4 shared

• Julia K. Woolley

  California Polytechnic State University

  3 shared

• Nicholas David Bowman

  3 shared

• Mary Beth Oliver

  Pennsylvania State University

  3 shared

• Britani Luckman

  Pennsylvania State University

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D., College of Communications

  Pennsylvania State University

  2015

• MA, English

  University of North Carolina at Wilmington

  2009

• BA, Journalism and Mass Communication

  University of North Carolina

  2007

Awards & honors

• Promising Professor by the Mass Communication and Society Di…