Posted: July 2nd, 2015

responding to classmate Module 3

Lets reply to my classmate statement. This is what he wrote..

Learning and Motivation – Choice 1: TV Violence – IR – Clark
Psychologists have been examining whether portrayals of violence on television and in film are causative of aggression at least since television was invented. In 1972, Eron, Huesmann, Lefkowitz & Walder (1972), following up a previous study which had found that 3rd grade schoolchildren who preferred violent TV programs were related more violent by their peers, found that the violence of programs preferred by those 3rd graders was even more strongly predictive of violence ten years later, and found further that the effect of TV violence was relatively independent of other causes of violence, and was more strongly explanatory of aggression in these children than any other single tendency which was examined.

Of course these findings may have been correlative rather than causative, with children having more violent temperaments or who grew up in a home situation which exposed them to violence preferred violent programming on TV, as predicted by the mere exposure effect (Lilienfeld, et al., 2014). However, there is now over 40 years of such research on which to draw, and findings continue to suggest strongly that violent media – with that category now expanded to include video games – do in fact positively influence aggression, and that this causality may be attributed to the psychosocial model of observational learning, in this case with children using the violence seen in electronic media as their model (Huesmann & Eron, 2013). Tellingly, although one longitudinal study did find a positive relationship between a history of aggressive behavior and subsequent viewing of TV violence, they did not find this effect to be significant (Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolsky & Eron, 2003).
Nor does the phenomenon appear to be exclusively American, as studies have been conducted with children in Poland, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand (Huesmann & Eron, 2013; Robertson, McAnally & Hancox, 2013). Further, the overall increase in aggressive personality traits correlates strongly even when results are controlled for gender, IQ, socioeconomic status, history of antisocial behavior, and parental control (Robertson, et al., 2013). Additionally, the increase does not appear to be short term, with children only demonstrating aggression immediately after the exposure; rather, early childhood exposure to TV violence was found in one study to be predictive of aggressive behavior in both sexes through young adulthood, with the participants in this study ranging in age from 20 to 25 years (Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski & Eron, 2003).

Of course childhood and adolescent aggression may have many other causative and/or contributory factors than media violence; Reebye (2005) identifies eight distinct pathways to aggressive behavior having roots in early childhood, including parenting practices, disturbed or dysfunctional family dynamics, exposure to violence (in any form, and presumably personal exposure as well as vicarious exposure through media), and the influence of attachment relationships. Further, since much of the evidence in favor of TV violence influencing aggressive behavior comes from two primary researchers, Eron & Huesmann, experimenter expectancy effects may be a factor in results and should be carefully considered (Lilienfeld, et al., 2014). However, the corroboration of equivalent and/or similar effects from other researchers strongly suggests that the effect is both replicable and real, and that TV violence does in fact engender real world aggression.

Eron, L.D., Huesmann, L.R., Lefkowitz, M.M. & Walder, L.O. (1972). Does television violence cause aggression? American Psychologist 27(4): 253-263. doi: 10.1037/h0033721. Retrieved from EbscoHost July 1, 2015.

Huesmann, L.R. & Eron, L.D. (eds.) (2013). Television and the aggressive child: A cross-national comparison. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN-13: 978-0415837187

Huesmann, L.R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C.-L. & Eron, L.D. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children’s exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977-1992. Developmental Psychology 39(2): 201-221. doi: Retrieved from EbscoHost PsycArticles July 1, 2015.

Lilienfeld, S.O., Lynn, S. J., Namy, L.L., and Woolf, N.J. (2014). Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding by Pearson Education (3rd Ed.) Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Reebye, P. (2005). Aggression during early years – infancy and preschool. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 14(1): 16-20. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2538723/

Robertson, L.A., McAnally, H.M. & Hancox, R.J. (2013). Childhood and adolescent television viewing and antisocial behavior in early adulthood. Pediatrics 131(3): 439-446. doi: 10.1542/peds.2012-1582

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