Aggression - Media Influences Flashcards
What are some forms of the media?
Excessive TV viewing, violent films, and computer games.
Aggression in the media is thought to lead to increased aggression in the viewer.
Why does excessive TV viewing cause aggression?
Hours of TV viewing irrespective of whether the content is violent, may lead to aggressive behaviour.
What did Robertson et al (2013) investigate on excessive TV viewing and aggression?
- Studied 1037 people born in New Zealand in 1972 and 1973 and measured their TV viewing hours at regular intervals up to age 26.
- findings: time spent watching TV was a reliable predictor of aggressive behaviour in adulthood. Those who watched the most TV were more likely to be diagnosed with anti social personality disorder. It is the amount of TV watched not the violence on the TV that was important.
Why has violent films been related to aggression?
Potentially most significant media influence on aggression as the content itself is explicitly violent.
What did BAndura find about violent films & aggression?
Reproduced the earlier study of Bandura’s Bobo Doll, but this time, 1 group of children watched a film of the BoBo Doll sing beaten by an adult model, while others watched in person.
Findings: previous findings were replicated; the group that observed the real-life model showed the highest level of imitative aggression, followed closely by the film-watching group.
Suggests the social learning processes of vicarious reinforcement through watching the consequences of other behaviour also operate through media as well as face-to-face.
