Chapter 5: Media Violence and Aggression Flashcards
What are copycat crimes?
Copycat crimes from media are a significant problem
- real people copy scenes from movies and TV shows, ex. a man stabbed a girl 20 times in a scream mask
There are copycat crimes following highly publicized news reports such as murder-suicides and school shootings
The problem is “The contagion effect”; killers are often motivated by fame, publicizing/glorifying crime fuels individuals who desire notoriety
What are rates of media saturation?
The average North American child (ages 8-18) spends over 7 hours a day using one or more forms of media
Wilson found that TV shows aimed at kids 12 and younger have more violence and positive reinforcement for violence than shows for adults.
TV shows, movies, video games containing violence are highly popular
- 94% of top 100 video games contain violence
Even “G” rated movies contain many types of physical and indirect aggression
- there is a symbol of aggression every 3 minutes on tv, or 42.5 acts per hour
What is the problem when studying media violence and which hypothesis’ have been formed?
Correlational studies can’t answer what causes aggression from media exposure: are naturally aggressive children more likely to watch violent media, or does violent media makes children more aggressive?
- Socialization hypothesis: viewing violent media makes people more aggressive
- Selection hypothesis: violent people watch violent media
What did Huesmann find in his longitudinal study of media volence? Which hypothesis did the results support?
They conducted a longitudinal study where he followed a group of participants from age 8 to age 30
From age 8-11 they found that more aggressive children watched more violent TV shows and identified more strongly with violent characters
Watching violent TV at age 8 predicted aggressive behaviour at age 18 and age 30, even after controlling for levels of initial aggression
- this finding was only significant for boys
This provides support for the socialization hypothesis
What did Coyne (2008) find when participants watched an aggressive film?
Studied how viewing an aggressive film affected participants aggression towards others
IV. type of film:
- Physically aggressive (Kill Bill)
- Relationally aggressive (Mean girls)
- Control: Nonaggressive
Found that compared to the control condition, participants who watched the aggressive films were more aggressive to two targets
When TV was introduced in a town, what did Macbeth (2006) discover?
Studied the effect of TV when it was introduced into a remote community in Northern Canada (“Notel”)
Measures: ratings of physical and verbal aggressiveness provided by teachers, observers, and children themselves
They found that aggressive behaviour increased significantly in “Notel” following the introduction of TV
What did Bushman and Anderson find the effect size of violent media exposure and aggression to be?
They found it to have a moderate effect; there is a link between the use of media violence and aggression.
- smoking + lung cancer; 0.4
- TV violence + aggression; 0.3
- second hand smoke + cancer; 0.1
What has a survey found on video game usage?
The Pew Research Centre Poll (2008) found that 97% of teens (12-17) said they play violent video games, and 31% play every day
- boys were more likely than girls to have a preference for games rated M
Why is it thought that video games could have a higher impact on aggressive behaviour than TV? How does Greitemeyer and McLatchie (2011) explain this?
Video games might have more of an impact than TV violence because players are:
- actively involved in planning and carrying out aggressive acts
- reinforced for successful symbolic violence
They claimed that video games make us see others as less humans, especially when the video game is more violent/realistic, the bigger the effects
What did Anderson (2010) find in his meta-analysis on video game violence?
Conducted a meta-analysis combining data from 381 studies (including over 130 000 participants)
They found that playing violent video games increased aggression:
- for children, teens, and young adults (stronger for children than it was for other age groups)
- across all three research designs (correlational, experimental, and longitudinal)
What are video games thought to increase?
Violence in video games cause increase in:
- Aggressive thoughts (see world through “blood-tinted glasses”)
- Aggressive feelings (anger, hostility, revenge)
- Aggressive behaviour (even among participants low in trait hostility)
- Causes a decrease in empathy and helping others
What did Bushman and Anderson (2009) find in their study of reaction time in relation to video games?
Experimental approach:
IV: participants played violent video game or non-violent video game for 20 minutes
Researchers staged a fight in the hallway; the injured confederate calls out for help (diffusion of responsibility was decreased by no one else being around)
DV: length of time until participants went out into hallway to help confederate
Found that it took non-violent video game players only 15 seconds to respond, where as violent video game players took over 70 seconds to respond
What is violent pornography? How popular is it? What is is associated with?
Pornographic material that includes an element of violence against women.
In analyzing the top 50 porn videos in 2004, it was found that of the 304 scenes:
- 88% showed physical aggression
- 48% showed verbal aggression
- 95% of targets responded with pleasure
- only 10% contained positive behaviours
Regular viewing is associated with greater acceptance of sexual violence toward women (ex. rape myths)
What has research found in relation to violent pornography and aggression?
- Among university students, high violent pornography consumption predicts sexual aggressiveness
- Boys and girls age 10-15 who have seen violent sexual content online are six times more likely to be sexually aggressive to others
- Rapists, serial killers & child molesters are frequently high users of violent pornography, such as Paul Bernardo
- Those who watched pornographic film gave higher chocks to female confederate who had angered them that were twice as intense as the men in the other conditions
What some reasons why media violence might affect viewer’s aggression?
- Weakened inhibitions and increased arousal:
- “if they can do it, so can I.”
- being in a state of increased arousal allows for easier reaction with aggression if provoked - Imitation:
- “oh, so that’s how you do It.”
- especially if actor is rewarded and seems justified - Priming:
- “I think it must be aggressive feelings that I’m experiencing.” - Desensitization:
- “ho-hum – another brutal beating.”
- reduced physiological/emotional response to viewing violence and suffering - “Mean world” syndrome:
- “the world sure is a violent place” - The uses and gratifications approach: views people as active media consumers