Psychological
explanations for
media influences
on anti-social
behaviour
Observational learning and imitation,
Children observe the actions of media
models and may later imitate these
behaviours, especially if the violent
behaviour is successful in gaining the
models objectives
Bandura's research supports the view that
children learn specific acts of aggression
and increased aggressiveness through
imitating models
The two boys who murdered James Bulger
were said to be inspired by the video Child's
Play
There is not a lot o supporting evidence for
this outside of Bandura's research with
specifically prepared videos
Cognitive Priming, Immediately after
a violent programme, the viewer is
primed to respond aggressively
because a network of memories
involving aggression is retrieved
Josephson (1987) hockey players behaved more
aggressively after watching a violent video, the use of a
walkie-talie in the video also acted as a cue for
aggression
Desensitisation, Media violence may
stimulate aggressive behaviour by
desensitising children to the effects of
violence. The more televised violence a child
watches the more acceptable aggressive
behaviour becomes
Cumberbatch argues that people might get
used to screen violence but this does not mean
a person will also get used to violence in the real
world
Lowered physiological arousal, The arousal
stimulated by viewing violence is unpleasant a
first but children who constantly view watch
violent television become used to it and their
emotional and physiological response declines
Zillman suggested that the
excitation-transfer model suggests
that arousal creates a readiness to
aggress if there are appropriate
circumstances
Feshbach and Singer believe that watching violence has
beneficial cathartic effect - arousal allows one release of
pent-up aggressive energies
Large scale studies have found that there are
stronger desensitisation effects for males than
for females
Justification, violent behaviours on television may
provide a justification for a child's own violent behaviour,
or they may provide moral guidelines concerning what is
acceptable and unacceptable
many tv programmes have mixed prosocial
and antisocial messages e.g good guys
behaving violently
Liss and Reinhardt suggest that negative
effects of such programmes support the concept
of justification
The use of aggression by prosocial
characters lends an aura of moral
justification