Desensitisation, disinhibition and cognitive priming

Question 1

What is densitisation?

Answer 1

Reduced sensitivity to a stimulus. This may be psychological and this reduced response may make a behaviour such as aggression more likely.

Question 2

What is disinhibition?

Answer 2

A lack of restraint (no longer being inhibited). This may be due to environmental triggers or overexposure to a stimulus, resulting in socially unacceptable behaviours become acceptable and therefore more likely

Question 3

What is cognitive priming?

Answer 3

The way a person thinks is triggered by cues or scripts which makes us ready (primed) to respond in specific ways. For example, watching violent films provides a script about how to react in certain situations so a person is more ready to respond in the same way

Question 4

What is the role of desensitisation?

Answer 4

• Overtime, when children repeatedly view aggression on TV or play violent computer games, they come used to its effects. This means the stimulus has a lesser impact and anxiety/arousal ( by the sympathetic nervous system ) becomes lower on repeated viewing or playing.
• Desensitisation is also psychological as repeated exposure to violent media promotes a belief that aggression as a method of resolving conflict is socially acceptable. This causes negative attitudes to violence to weaken, less empathy for victims and injuries are minimised and dismissed

Question 5

Explain the study on densensitisation?

Answer 5

• There was a laboratory study conducted by Monica Weisz and Christopher Earls.
• They showed their participants the feature film Straw Dogs which contains a prolonged and graphic scene of rape.
• Participants then watched a re - enactment of a rape trial. Compared with those who watched a non - sexually violent film, male viewers of straw dogs showed greater acceptance of rape myths and sexual aggression.
• They also expressed less sympathy towards the rape victim in the trail and were less likely to find the defendant guilty. There was no such effect of film type on female participants.

Question 6

What is the role of disinhibition?

Answer 6

• Our strong social and psychological inhibitions against the use of aggression are explained by the SLT.
• According to the disinhibition explanation, these usual restraints are loosened after exposure to violent media. Aggressive behaviour is often made to appear normative and socially sanctioned in media, as it normally minimises the effects of violence and suggests that it is justified
• Also, during violent video games normally violent behaviour is rewarded which creates new social norms in the viewer.

Question 7

What is the role of cognitive priming?

Answer 7

• Repeated viewing of aggressive media can provide us with a script about how violent situations play out
• This script is stored in our memory so we become primed to be aggressive
• This is mostly automatic and the script is triggered when we encounter cues in a situation we percieve as aggressive

Question 8

What is the research into the role of cognitive priming?

Answer 8

• Peter Fischer and Tobias Greitemeyer ilustrated the priming of aggressive scripts. They investigated song lyrics. Men listened to songs that featured aggressive lyrics about women. Compared to when they listened to neutral lyrics, participants recalled more negative qualities about women and behaved more aggressively to a confederate who was a women. Similar results came when the inverse was done using men - hating song lyrics

Question 9

Evaluate the role of desensitisation

Answer 9

Strength = One strength is that there is research support. Krahe showed participants violent and non violent films and measured physiological arousal using skin conductance.
- Participants who often viewed violent media showed lower levels of arousal and also gave louder bursts of white noise when provoked by a confederate
- This shows lower arousal occurs in people who frequently watch violent media.

Limitation = A limitations is that desensitisation can not explain some aggression. The study by Krahe failed to link media viewing, lower arousal and reactive aggression. A more valid explanation of aggression may be catharisis and that violent media may be an outlet to allow people to release aggressive impulses. Therefore, not all aggression is due to desensitisation.

Question 10

Evaluate the role of disinhibition

Answer 10

Strength = One strength of the disinhibition explanation is research support. Berkowitz and Alioto found participants who saw a film depicting aggression as vengeance gave more electric shocks of a longer duration to a confederate. Therefore, media violence may disinhibit if it depicts aggression in a way that is socially acceptable

Strength = Another strength is that disinhibition can explain the effects of cartoon violence. Children do not learn aggressive behaviours from cartoons but they learn that aggression is socially acceptable. The aggressive behaviour is not normally punsihed, disinhiniting aggression.
- This shows how cartoon aggression can lead to aggression in those who observe it.

Question 11

Evaluate cognitive priming?

Answer 11

Strength = One strength of cognitive priming is it has real world applications. Whether real world situations become violent depends on environmental cues. Environmental cues depend on the cognitive scripts we have stored in our memory.
- Bushman and Anderson argue that someone who watches violent media often, access aggressive scripts more readily and are therefore likely to interpret cues as aggressive and resort to violence.

Limitation = One limitation is that there are confounding variables. Research into the effects of video games found that violent games prime violent behaviour more than non - violent games. However, violent games are complex and therefore the complexity may be a confounding variable. Zendle found when complexity was controlled, priming effects disappeared. This shows that priming may be due to confounding variables.