Media Influences on Aggression Flashcards
Violent Films & TV - Lab & Field Experiments
In a typical experimental study, researchers randomly assign participants to either an experimental condition, where they view violent film scenes, or a control condition where they watch non-violent scenes. They are then observed to see how they interact with other people after viewing the film. A consistent finding from both laboratory and field experiments is that those who watch violent scenes subsequently display more aggressive behaviour and have more aggressive thoughts or aggressive emotions than those who do not.
Bjorkqvist - exposed 5 to 6-year-old Finnish children to either violent or non-violent films. Compared with the children who had viewed the non-violent film, those who had watched the violent film were subsequently rated much higher on measures of physical aggression (e.g. hitting other children).
Violent Films & TV - Longitudinal Studies
Huesmann - studied 557 children aged 6-10yrs old growing up in Chicago in 1977, and then 329 of these 15 years later. He 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 style were controlled.
Violent Films& TV - Meta-analysis
Bushman and Huesmann - meta-analysis of 431 studies, 68,000 ppts. 264 of these studies involved children & 167 involved adults. Most studies looked at impact of violent TV, but others looked at effect of video games, music and comics. They found an effect for media violence on aggressive behaviours, thoughts, angry feelings and arousal levels. The short-term effects of violent media were greater for adults, but long-term effects greater for children.
Violent Computer Games - Experiments
Gentile & Stone - Lab experiments have found short-term increases in physiological arousal , hostile feelings and aggression following violent video games compared to non-violent games.
Anderson & Dill - ppts blasted their opponents with white noise for longer and rated themselves higher on the state hostility scale after playing Wolfstein (violent shooter game) compared to those who played Myst (slow paced puzzle game).
Violent Computer Games - Longitudinal Studies
Anderson - surveyed 340 children aged 7-9yrs old at two points during the school year. Children who had high exposure to violent video games became more verbally and physically aggressive and less prosocial.
Adachi & Willoughby - the longitudinal link between violent video games and aggression may be due to the competitive nature of the games, rather than the violence, as violent video games tend to be more competitive than non-violent games.
AO3 - Overstating the Case
Some critics point that although many studies claim a ‘statistically significant’ relationship between media violence and violent behaviour, this is an overstatement of the case. Studies that have found an effect attributable exposure to violent media have typically reported only small to medium effect sizes. However, very few of these have actually measured aggression against another person. Ferguson and Kilburn note that when aggression towards another person or violent crime is the measure of aggression used in research, the relationship between exposure to media violence and aggressive behaviour is actually close to zero.
AO3 - Simple Questions but Complex Answers
Livingstone - asking questions such as ‘does violent media increase aggressive behaviour in viewers?’ may appear a simple question, but answers are much more complex. Most studies are American, so findings hard to generalise to countries with different media and cultural histories. Effects research uses unrepresentative samples e.g. male students. There is a need for better methodologies in more natural viewing conditions. Field experiments conducted with better experimental controls and a longer follow up period would provide most convincing evidence.
AO3 - Failure to Consider other Causal Variables
Ferguson - much of the research on the effects of computer game violence has failed to control for other variables known to influence aggressive behaviour. Their meta-analysis showed that the effects of violent media content on aggressive behaviour disappears when other potential influences such as trait aggression, family violence and mental health are considered. These other factors are the primary cause of aggressive and violent behaviour.
