media Flashcards
what are the effects of the media on aggression (dont deep dawg)
Watching violent imagery is more likely to lead to higher degrees of aggression in real life.
what is cognitive priming
we form scripts from watching aggression
these scripts can be triggered later on in life
tv exposure is a blue print for more aggressive solution to problems
exposure encodes memories for these scripts and how and when to behave aggressively when similar cues are present
They may lower the threshold for activation of other aggressive thoughts.
Effects of TV aggression may be general.
Tendency to behave in a generally violent or aggressive traits.
not enough compelling evidence for us to be certain
who studied cognitive priming
Josephson (1987)
what happened dawg
Children exposed to the violent TV clip behaved more aggressively during the hockey game
hitting, tripping, or verbal hostility
Only when the priming cue (the walkie-talkie) was present.
When these boys encountered the walkie-talkie during the game, it acted as a trigger, making the primed aggressive thoughts more accessible and increasing the likelihood of aggressive behavior.
what is desensitization
Repeated exposure of media violence removes anxiety about violence.
Desensitized individuals show reduction in physiological arousal when exposed to violence in real life.
what is disinhibition
Repeated exposure to violent media changes standards of what is considered acceptable behaviour.
May have both an immediate effect and a long term effect.
makes us think its an okay response
who did a meta analysis on aggression in children and adults
Bushman and Huesmann
what did they find
The short-term effects of violent media were greater for adults than for children, whereas the long-term effects were greater for children than for adults.
why does this have good real life applications
By understanding the potential for long-term increases in aggression, parents can take proactive steps to limit or monitor exposure to violent content, reducing the risk of their children developing aggressive tendencies.
All of these features of media influence on aggression are hugely important for policy-makers and those working in fields such as education, health and law enforcement to understand e.g. the fact that a weapon is a key priming stimulus which could be used to try to prevent the growing problem of knife crime
who did a longitudinal study
huessman 2003 studied long term effects
what were the results
They found that habitual early exposure to TV violence was predictive of adult aggression later in life and that this applied to both boys and girls.
This relationship persisted even when the possible effects of socioeconomic status, intelligence and any differences in parenting styles were controlled.
Nothing was a better predictor of aggression than TV exposure
why are longnitudinal studies good
They provide a detailed picture of the progression of behaviors, attitudes, or conditions over time, offering insights into patterns that short-term studies might miss.
By observing participants at different stages, researchers can better understand the sequence of events or changes, which is critical for identifying early indicators or predictors of later outcomes.
what’s a weakness of desensitization
Not all research supports desensitisation e.g. Gao et al. (2017) found via fMRI that participants who regularly played violent computer games showed no difference in the activity of brain regions associated with empathy when viewing images of people in pain than non-players
whats cultivation theory
theory that examines the long term effects of media exposure on peoples behavior