Unit 4 Flashcards
What is Excitation Transfer?
-arousal from one event can be added to the arousal w/ a subsequent event (that is temporally close) -result is intensified level of arousal for the latter event
What is the difference between violence and aggression?
violence is higher in intensity -aggression is more general (any action intended to cause harm)
Summarize Anderson et al. Findings? Limitations?
- longer term study -cross-cultural -confirmed that (habitually) playing vid games is causal risk for later aggression
- 3 samples = 181 japanese 12-15yr olds, 1050 japanese 12-18yr olds, 364 US 9-12yr olds -studied before & after 3-6 months
- same effect btw US (aggressive, individualistic) and Japan (less aggressive, collective) -slightly less effects for older youth
- limitations: -measures not identical across samples (but could show robustness) -need larger sample size & longer periods
Summarize Konijn. Findings? Limitations?
- violent vid games might increase aggression more when players identify w/ the characters -SLT
- 112 dutch boys aged 12-17 -played realistic or fantasy violent or non-violent game -then noise test
- result: identifying w/ characters does make more aggressive -not all players who played violent were aggressive, but those who identified were (not necessarily those who were already aggressive)
- limitations: -hard to measure all aspects of identification -limits ability to make causal inferences -only studied boys
What is violence?
any act or threat of physical force against self or others (except includes accidents) so acts that intentionally lead to physical or psychological harm
what is aggression?
any act intended to cause harm -broader category
- can be direct or indirect
- ex. verbal (direct), physical (direct), or relational (indirect)
Problems w/ defining violence and aggression?
- hard to do
- what about news? a hockey game?
What are some factors that impact likelihood of acting aggressive?
- aggressive emotions
- aggressive traits
- physiological factors
- aggressive thoughts
Is catharsis supported? What is it?
- no not enough evidence
- idea of purging -if violent thoughts can release through watching media
Who’s most likely to imitate on Bobo doll if rewarded? What factors might impact this?
- boys
- having a model similar to themselves (ie sex)
- or a model they know
- personal factors
How does scripts theory work w/ violence?
- violent media can build up scripts in a certain way -ex. if there’s a disagreement, think it’s okay/acceptable to punch since you’ve seen it
- shapes your thoughts which then shape your behaviour
- thoughts!
How does excitation theory work w/ violence?
- consuming violent media leads to arousal -can be interpreted as anger
- arousal starts emotion -emotions leads to action
- emotions!
What is desensitization?
- repeated exposure to media violence leads to lessened emotional reaction
- neuroimaging of brain - showed grownups varying violent clips -left orbital frontal cortex detects threat signal and regulates emotions -after a lots of violence, decrease in activation
- emotions!
How does priming work w/ violence?
- violent stimuli activate aggressive thoughts - prime related thoughts
- the more you watch the more related thoughts are activated & prime for others
- thoughts!
Which media effects theories deal w/ violence and emotions?
- excitation transfer theory
- desensitization theory
Which media effects theories deal w/ violence and thoughts?
- scripts
- priming
How can both theories exist when one says gets more aroused and one says we’re desensitized?
-different time scales - 1st time you are aroused but if repeated exposure become desensitized
main points of GAM (general aggression model)
- input variables (personal or situational)
- affect internal state (affect, cognition, arousal - bidirectional)
- then route is appraised for either thoughtful action or impulse action -decide to act aggressively -either reinforced or punished or neither (same as rewarded basically) -then will impact future decisions
What is the difference between UMM and GAM?
-replace the word aggression w/ behaviour
How does media affect GAM?
- input variables -short-term impacts arousal, affect, & primes aggressive thoughts to affect internal state (affect, cognition, & arousal)
- long term - more aggressive scripts, reinforced to lead to a more aggressive personality or desensitization to violence (action, cognition, person)
How did Anderson et al contradict that only aggressive kids will become more aggressive?
- SLT
- kids from low aggressive cultures/pretested as low aggression kids still acted aggressive after habitual playing
What were Anderson’s & Konijn recommendations on how to lessen impact of violent vid games?
- focus on pain of victims
- stop glamorizing violent actions
what is similarity identification?
-observer identifies w/ characters b/c share salient characteristics
What is wishful identification?
-observer desires to emulate character outside of viewing situation -vicarious learning -glimpse of ‘what if’
Do realism and immersion affect aggressive behaviour?
- no doesn’t seem like it
- but do affect wishful identification which does
Do most aggressive kids automatically act aggressively after playing the game? (Konijn)
-no depended on wishful identification - but hard to measure that -also the kids who were more aggressive seemed to choose violent game & identified w/ character more
Was correlation btw aggressiveness and wishful identification significant?
- no
- depended on vid game played I think
was correlation btw realism and immersion significant? (Konijn)
no
What other factors that can lead to aggression (not media related)
-genetics, experience of abuse, parenting, owning a weapon, gender, aggressive personality
What are some correlational designs/findings for TV violence?
- positive correlation btw violent TV consumption and aggressive cognition/behaviour
- 1970s -measured how much kids were exposed & willingness to use violence -more exposed were more willing
- wrestling -those who watched & if have tried to fight before - positive
What are some correlational designs/findings for vid games violence?
- positive correlation
- 4&5yr olds -coded what they played -amount was correlated w/ lower empathy or positive attitudes towards violence
Correlational problems w/ violent Tv & vid Games
- third variable?
- directionality
- accuracy of responses
- (also most seemed to study only boys b/c more consistent result w/in boys)
Why use longitudinal designs?
-for direction of effect
Longitudinal designs & violence
- grade 3-4 -violent TV exposure (+ self-reports & others reports) -15yrs later correlated w/ aggression behaviour in 20s (weakish)
- if aggressive as a kid didn’t predict how much violent TV you’d watch in 20s -proves direction is media –> aggression
- higher likelihood of criminal convictions
- still not causal -3rd variable?
What is the downward spiral model?
watch more aggressive media leads to being more aggressive which makes you watch more media etc.
Experimental designs and violence in TV shows?
- those who watch TV violence do engage in more aggressive conditions/behaviours
- also indirect aggression
- 11-14yr olds were showed 1-3 TV shows of a friendship (direct or indirect or non) -then they evaluated the researcher -they rated her less positively & siad she should be paid less after watching aggression (direct or indirect)
- is this modelling behaviour? mood? is the control group vid similar enough?
Experimental designs and violence in Vid Games?
- pattern is assigned to violent vid game leads to more aggression (majority)
- 9-12 yr olds & 17-19 yr olds -either violent or non-violent game -(games diff depending on age) -played for 20min -then noise test - blasted louder after violent game
- BUT not all studies
- 8-12 yr olds -play vi or non and then after gave scenarios of kid getting a toy stolen -found no difference btw playing the game beforehand
What is the term for the noise test? & what is it?
Taylor Competitive Reaction Time task
- get to blast your losing opponent w/ a sound - a certain level could deafen them -those that are aggressive do -how loud level is level of aggression
- real world applicable?
In general is consuming media violence linked to increased aggression? Problems?
yes -but it depends
- real-world effects?
- are results meaningful?
- ethics
Are the findings similar in meta-analysis of more aggressive media linking to aggressive behaviour? Issues?
- yes -but small to moderate effect
- 5-10% of aggressive behaviour could be explained
- most likely other factors
- real world effect
- methodological flaws/summary flaws in studies
- individual factors
What are some characteristics of the consumer that might factor into the impact of media violence?
- gender (recent studies less likely to find differences & most are about boys -possible gender effect but not enough data)
- culture (seems no difference )
- personality & mental state (individual aggressiveness, likely to feel angry or frustrated after exposure to media violence)
- age (hard to study -ethics)
What are some characteristics of the media that might factor into the impact of media violence? (in connection w/ consumers)
- identification w/ violent characters (similarity & wishful)
- context (glamorization, rewarded or unpunished, justified, realistic)
- the medium (hard to compare between, (ex. vid games impact user more than viewer, meta-analyses find larger effect size from Tv violence than vid games))
