TV VIOLENCE & AGGRESSION IN CHILDREN.   Term Paper ID:24423 Click to get this paper

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Paper Abstract: Evaluates history of studies examining a possible link between violence on TV & children's anti-social behavior. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine whether television violence causes aggression in children. The plan of the research will be to set in historical context the rising concern over this issue, and then to focus on experimental, correlational, and longitudinal psychological research demonstrating that there is compelling evidence in the professional literature that television violence causes children to be aggressive. As appropriate, competing philosophical and theoretical positions on the connection between violent television programming and real-life violence will be alluded to, with a view toward suggesting implications and forecasting possible lines of development of resolution of difficulties posed by that connection. The effects of television violence on the behavior and socia Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. 18). Warning from Washington. Arendt suggests, indeed, that exposure to violence maysometimes be beneficial. Cannon, C. Seamy side of democracy: repression in America. The difficulty of demonstrating anunambiguous connection is cited by Freedman (1984), who says that even ifexposure to and preference for violent television content can be correlatedwith social aggression, no correlation has been found that early exposureto TV violence guarantees aggression in later years. Sanson, A., & di Muccio, C. Controversysurrounded the report because of popular (i.e., not technical) pressinterpretations (Cater & Strickland, 1976, p. Thisdoes not mean that television does not affect perceptions and behavior butrather that television violence per se may not explain feelings of socialpathology in children. Based on test results that haverepeatedly shown that those viewing violent programs are more likely to actaggressively, two points of view have developed, from "activists who seekto limit television violence and critics who maintain that the evidence isstill inconclusive" (Warning, 1982, p. Afterward, by means ofeither interviews or observation of children in group settings,participants are judged in terms of their willingness or desire to behaveaggressively in social situations. A 1982 report on TV violence and antisocial behavior sponsored by theNational Institute of Mental Health describes studies conducted since 197 that prove television's role in inciting violence in children that does notdisappear in adulthood. 147). Thereport was based on "twenty-three independent research projects and morethan forty technical papers" (Cater & Strickland, 1976, p. What this study found was that behavior of bothgirls and boys in the American sample was consistent with the frequency ofviolent-TV watching and the level of violence in a given violent TVprogram, and further, that the degree to which a child (especially a boy)identified with a character determined the tendency toward aggression ingeneral and increases in tolerance for aggression in particular. B. Additionally, sex-selected differences were more pronounced among the older children thanamong younger. While individual studies vary in goals and methods, a typical measureof the effect of television violence involves having a sample ofparticipants view either preselected TV fare containing what is determinedto be violent or programming that lacks violence. (1984, September). Agreeing that over the long haul violence willinhere in a more violent world, she also states that "violence . Influence of aggressive andneutral cartoons and toys on the behaviour of preschool children.Australian Psychologist, 28, 93-99. 79). Inother words, five-year-olds who viewed violent TV would not necessarilyfollow a trend line to aggressive social behavior by the age of ten. This finding suggests that observed differences between males and females in attraction to violence may really be a function of their interest in the theme of justice-restoration (Cantor & Nathanson, 1997, p. (1993, December). L. Much still clearly remains to bediscovered, but our major conclusions are unlikely to be changed by suchfuture work" (Eysenck & Nias, 1978, p. One longitudinal (three-year) studythat comparing effects of aggressive and socially responsible charactermodels on several hundred children in Holland hypothesized that aggressivebehavior was a consequence of TV violence viewing found an apparentpositive correlation between the two variables, but only up to a point(Wiegman, Kuttschreuter, & Baarda, 1992). It was not confirmed forthe boys not rated as aggressive. (1997, Spring). For example, the reactions and behaviorof American and Finnish children were compared over a period of the firstfive years of elementary school, with a view toward finding therelationship between viewing TV violence and the likelihood of futureaggressive behavior in these children. Cannon and Krasny (1993), as well as Chidney (1996), cite multiplereports of violent and grisly murders--from mass shootings in public placesto torture murders--many of whose perpetrators explained their actions asbeing duplications of what had been viewed on television. The only effect contrary to repressive values was that television slightly enhanced respect for other culture. Sex violence and the media.New York: St. However, this attraction was not unambiguously relatedto social aggression: Rather than liking all types of violence (as most theories of gender differences assume), male children seem to be attracted to shows in which violence is used to accomplish larger goals. R., Lagerspetz, K., & Eron, L. 112) in its results and conclusions. Eysenck and Nias appearconvinced that the potential threat to society posed by violence intelevision justifies its censorship, although, they explain that they "donot wish to exclude all violence; this would clearly be impossible, as wellas undesirable" (Eysenck & Nias, 1978, p. Psychological Bulletin, 96, 227-246. Martin's Press. Wolfe continues elsewhere: [T]elevision makes children materialistic and keeps them in adolescence longer. Another study set out to measure the effect of television violence onelementary school boys' aggression in a controlled setting (Josephson,1987). Not all studies agreethat real-life aggression is be explained as attributable to sociallylearned behavior by television example. 2-4, et passim), infightingamong various research groups, and disagreements over the issue within thevarious disciplines that set themselves the task of explaining the nexus ofreal-life aggression and television violence. (1996, June 17). (1973). . Newsweek, 121-2. Then the boys were invited to play field hockey, during which theirrelative aggressiveness was observed. . Sohn, D. American Psychologist 37, 197-211. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 147-164. In other words, an additional factor ofpredisposition to violence on one hand or a predisposing resistance to thepower of violence to manipulate behavior may be required in order to arriveat a definite conclusion about the connection between TV violence andaggressive social behavior. Kids today. Experimental groupswatched a violent program that included the use of an electroniccommunicating device; control groups watched nonviolent TV. Thechildren were eight years old. To control for environmentalfactors, the parents of the majority of the children were interviewed inorder to determine the level of adult aggression from which children mighttake behavioral cues irrespective of cues from television (Huesmann,Lagerspetz, & Eron, 1984). Murphy, C. The principalmechanism of verification of early findings has been to create studies ofchildren in a variety of cultures. It persists in the contextof evidence that modern society is rife with violence that seemsattributable to cues from popular culture, whether television, movies, ormusic. Consider forexample arguments to the effect that factors besides television may beresponsible for aggression in the U.S. After the filmthe boys were interviewed by researcher, who evaluated their aggressivenesslevels. 112). However,some studies have confirmed the views of Eron, Huesmann, and theircolleagues only in part. (1992, June). Asappropriate, competing philosophical and theoretical positions on theconnection between violent television programming and real-life violencewill be alluded to, with a view toward suggesting implications andforecasting possible lines of development of resolution of difficultiesposed by that connection. References Arendt, H. . Ten years later in 1972, a follow-up studyof about half the same group of people, by that time eighteen years ofage, essentially came down to recognition of the fact that aggression andtelevision violence could be mutually and statistically "predicted" (Cater& Strickland, 1976, p. For example, a longitudinal Australian study ofyoungsters from five to ten years of age had the purpose of findingcorrelation, over a period of time, between TV violence viewing habits andaggressive social interaction (Sheehan, 1993). Meanwhile, a study of preschoolers that usedphysical cues in conjunction with television programs found that those whowatched a violent cartoon and then were given aggressive toys like thoseused in the cartoon were much more likely to use those toys aggressivelythan the children who were given the toys but who had watched a neutralcartoon (Sanson & di Muccio, 1993). It might simply be that the children who were more inclined to be aggressive toward others were also more likely to enjoy watching aggressive actions on television. The hypothesis was that boys exposed to both violent TV and real-world physical cues to aggression would behave most aggressively in thegame playing immediately following the programs. New indictment of TV violence. (1982, Autumn). I. NIMH asserts that "the question no longer iswhether TV directly causes aggressive behavior in children and adolescents,but how . 197). (1993, July). In 1969, a reportof the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violenceincluded two chapters "concerned with TV violence and its effects" (Eysenck& Nias, 1978, p. American Psychologist, 36, 229-231. This was confirmed, atleast for boys who had been rated as aggressive. 18 ). canserve to dramatize grievances and bring them to public attention . Itwas also concluded that the connection between TV violence viewing andaggression was bidirectional and causal, such that violent TV predictedaggression, and aggression predisposed the children to increased amountsand levels of violence on TV, in part, as it seems, because there was noindication that the presence of aggressive or nonaggressive parents couldbe a reliable predictor of television-related aggression on the part of thechildren. In thisregard, in a complex study of children's responses to violent cartoons andviolent programming with a theme of good triumphing over evil, Cantor andNathanson (1997) found that boys and girls alike were attracted to thecartoons and boys attracted more than girls to "justice-restoring genres"of violent programs. Howitt, D. The effect isnot limited to children who are already disposed to being aggressive and isnot restricted to this country" (Cannon & Krasny, 1993, p. (1976). (1972, October). New York; Harcourt, Brace & World. (1984, September).Intervening variables in the TV violence-aggression relation: Evidence fromtwo countries. J., & Nias, D. Sheehan, P. 124). Time, 77. Toxic TV. But it was not found that younger children who viewed TV violencecould be predicted to behave aggressively by the time they got older. . Television and aggression: Acounterargument. Developmental Psychology, 2 , 746-775. (1982, February). 16).Efforts to replicate and/or confirm the Rip Van Winkle study of children'ssocial learning strategies have led to conflicting conclusions about ofwhether TV violence causes aggression in children. How TV violence hits kids. (1982, May 17). tele-violence leaves a lasting--not just a temporary--imprinton young minds" (New, 1982, p. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 53, 882-89 . 77). There is a view that violent television does not necessarily lead tosocial pathology. Television violence and aggressionrevisited. They do, however, call fora code of programming practices (which as anyone who has watched broadcastor cable TV in 1996 and 1997 knows was mandated only some eighteen yearsafterward). 49). (1978). In this regard, Cater andStrickland caution that "statistical correlations do not prove that onevariable [TV violence] is the cause of the other [real-world aggression]"(Cater & Strickland, 1976, p. The effects of television violence on the behavior and socialdevelopment of children and adolescents have been debated for decades notleast because of the fact that the connection has been riveted in popularimagination. Josephson, W. 275). . TV Violence and the Child. When this study notes that "television may be used too easily as a pacifier (!) for young children," it unwittingly points out the role that television plays in guaranteeing that today's children will not have to be repressed through violence tomorrow (Wolfe, 1973, p. morethe weapon of reform than of revolution" (Arendt, 1969, p. K. In 1962, following up the implications of hisincidental finding, Eron supervised a study that measured the level ofaggression in children vis-à-vis their viewing television violence. To the first point, Wolfe asserts that social problemsare political and economic, adding that "any society that createsexpectations it cannot meet is a society geared of for heavy repression,and American capitalism is a perfect example" (Wolfe, 1973, p. But it seemsreasonable to suggest that if it cannot be shown unambiguously thattelevision violence causes real-world aggression in children, the weight ofevidence is on the side of the view that children's watching televisionviolence occurs in proximity to their aggressive behavior following it. The method employed was tointerview the children in order to measure their behavior, whetheraggressive or "prosocial," vis-à-vis their TV viewing, whether prosocial orviolnent. Parent-child interaction, televisionviolence, and aggression in children. (1982, May 17). L. American Psychologist, 27, 969-97 . To seek a resolution to this issue would seem a fool's errand if itcould be debated in a historical and political vacuum. NewYork: Russell Sage Foundation. Yet the 1982 NIMH report found "that many viewers tend toidentify with the victims of TV violence" (New, 1982, p. and that social aggression may notonly not be a vice but rather might actually possess the status of socialand civic virtue. Criticism does not appear to have discouraged Eron and his principalcollaborator, Huesmann, from continuing to design studies aimed atmeasuring the connection between children's aggression. Journal of Broadcastingand Electronic Media, 41, 155-167. . By no means, however, does there appear ever to have beengeneral agreement in popular culture and discourse of either the causes ofchildhood aggression in the television age or the perceived and proposedremedies, which generally include some version of sanctions against thecreation and dissemination of violent television content. Eysenck, H. Wolfe, A. . In 1972, the Surgeon General issued a reportentitled Television and Growing Up: The Impact of Televised Violence. Effect of television violence onaggressiveness. The fundamental thesis driving studies undertaken by Eron isarticulated by Mortimer: "Aggression is a learned behavior, it is learnedat an early age, and media violence is one of its teachers" (1994, p. Maclean's, 1 9, 36-41 Eron, L. 112; also cited by Murphy, 1982, p. The plan of the research will be to set inhistorical context the rising concern over this issue, and then to focus onexperimental, correlational, and longitudinal psychological researchdemonstrating that there is compelling evidence in the professionalliterature that television violence causes children to be aggressive. M., & Krasny, M. The purpose of this research is to examine whether television violencecauses aggression in children. 166; emphasis added).Cantor and Nathanson suggest that a child's idea of justice restoration maybe connected to attempts to rationalize aggressive behavior. Predictors ofchildren's interest in violent television programs. (1993, July). . D. (1969). Elsewhere,Eysenck and Nias, like Eron and Huesmann, make the case that "the evidence[of violence/aggression correlation] is remarkably consistent, andcongruent in its major aspects. However, theidea of operation of a moral telos is as provocative as the finding thatthe older the child, the stronger the interest in justice-restoring factorof violence. Wiegman, O., Kuttschreuter, M., & Baarda, B. In 1992, Eron and Huesmann testified before Congress that "Televisionviolence affects youngsters of all ages, of both genders, at allsocioeconomic levels and all levels of intelligence. Honey, I warped the kids.Mother Jones, 18, 16-21. Huesmann, L. (1994, October). 49). Freedman, J. It was also found that violence viewing could be morestrongly correlated with aggressive behavior among the older than youngerchildren. . 256). Age trends and the correlates ofchildren's television viewing. Cater, D., & Strickland, S. However, each succeedingresearch study of television violence seemed to find "a new indictment ofTV violence" (New, 1982, p. (1987, November). Mortimer, J. 49; Eron, 1982). Evidence that viewing violence aggravates antisocial tendencies is setbeside evidence that violence acts as a safety valve that fills the "needto drain off aggressive impulses" (Eysenck & Nias, 1978, p. Australian Journal of Psychology, 35, 417-431. 2). Specifically, Sohn pointed to the vast difference in correlationfactors for preferring violence in the third grade and aggressive socialbehavior by the end of high school between girls (.13, or relatively mild)and boys (.31, or relatively strong). First of all, there was adifference between behavior of boys and girls, with the former tendingtoward more aggressive social behavior than the latter. J. (1981, February). 74). Wilson Quarterly, 6, 61-82. EducationDigest, 6 , 16-19. Chidley, J. Similarly, Howitt (1972) questionedSohn's method of connecting perceived preferences for violence, not instudy-selected television programs but rather in the favorite self-selectedTV programs of eight-year-old third graders, to the more generally observedaggression behavior of these children as high school seniors. One negative critic of Eron was Sohn (1981), who questioned whetherlaboratory results obtained by Eron and colleagues had legitimateimplications for intervention in early childhood behavior with a viewtoward reducing aggression in society and building a more healthfulcommunity. Similarfindings were obtained for Finnish boys, although not for Finnish girls. NewYork: David McKay Company, Inc. If it had been unambiguously demonstrated that television violenceleads to social aggression, there would probably not be so much attentionpaid to competing points of view on the subject. 62). There is a compelling body of evidence in the literature that there isa positive correlation between TV violence and aggression in children.Eron's now famous Rip Van Winkle study, which has been revisited not onlyby other researchers in the field but also by Eron in conjunction withothers, was a longitudinal project begun in 1962 and completed in 1972.Eron cites "an incidental finding" in a study of aggression and child-rearing in the early 196 s that found that "there was a relation betweenthe violence of TV programs children preferred and how aggressive theywere" (Eron, 1982, p. The history of the connection between children's aggressiveness andviolence on TV appears to have begun in the wake of the politicalassassinations and social upheaval of the 196 s. The hypothesis that violent TV plusthe walkie-talkie t would lead to aggressive play. Longitudinalstudy of the effects of television viewing on aggressive and prosocialbehaviours. The hypothesis ultimately was abandoned when other factors, suchas the children's intelligence and researchers' knowledge of the level ofaggression already present in the experience and behavior of children apartfrom their exposure specifically to TV violence, were taken into account.In other words, this study failed to replicate core studies by Huesmannand Eron. Cantor, J., & Nathanson, A. On violence. This possibility could be considered a "rival hypothesis" to the notion that watching television violence causes aggressive behavior (Cater & Strickland, 1976, p. Television violence and children'saggression: Testing the priming, social script, and disinhibitionpredictions. D. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.