Antisocial Behaviour & The Mass Media: Is there a link?
Antisocial Behaviour & The Mass Media: Is there a link?
In recent years antisocial behaviour has increased ,with the average American child seeing 32,000 murders,400,000 attempted murders and 250,000 acts of violence on television before the age of eighteen (Ahmed 1998) it's perhaps not unreasonable for one to question if there is a link. Virtually since the dawn of television parents, teachers and mental health professionals have been concerned about the content of television programmes and it's impact on the viewer, particularly children. Of particular concern has been the portrayal of violence and antisocial behaviour especially given psychologist Albert Bandura's work on social learning and the tendency for children to imitate what they see. It is not just television that has given cause for concern but all forms of the media such as computer/video games ,music and magazines/comics. It is almost impossible to prove that there is a definite link between the media and antisocial behaviour but some psychologists would argue that from years of studies and research, the evidence of a relationship between the two is overwhelming.
Research into the time that an average household spends watching television has been steadily increasing since1965 (Burger 1982;Liebert & Sprafkin 1988) though this is thought not an entirely reliable source of information since it was determined from pen and paper surveys concerning viewing habits. A study by Anderson et al which involved monitoring households with camera recording equipment determined that children spend an average of 9.14 hours per week watching television and adults an average of 7.56 hours per week. Cumberbatch (1987) found that violence was more likely to occur in programmes screened after 9pm, though violence is often present in children's cartoons it's a debatable issue as to whether children view this as being realistic or not.
Albert Bandura's social leaning theory (1976) believed that aggressive tendancies were not inherited but were learned through a process called behaviour modelling. Bandura argued that individuals,especially children, learn aggressive responses from observing others either personally or through the media or enviroment. But is there actually any evidence to show that a child who views aggressive behaviour is likely to engage in it themselves? Bandura's Bobo doll study showed a film of a model (an adult to the children) acting violently towards the doll. The film had three differing endings which were shown to three different groups of children. One ending showed the model being punished for his violent behaviour one being rewarded and one experiencing no positive nor negative consequences for their displayed aggression.
The children were then taken into a room were they were told they were not allowed touch any of the toys in it which made them angry and frustrated and after a period of time they were then taken to a room with all the toys and also the bobo doll they were shown in the film. The outcomes of this were that those children who saw the adult's behaviour being reinforced for displaying aggressive behaviour performed more imitative aggressive acts than the group who saw the model being punished and the group who saw no consequences. The ...
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The children were then taken into a room were they were told they were not allowed touch any of the toys in it which made them angry and frustrated and after a period of time they were then taken to a room with all the toys and also the bobo doll they were shown in the film. The outcomes of this were that those children who saw the adult's behaviour being reinforced for displaying aggressive behaviour performed more imitative aggressive acts than the group who saw the model being punished and the group who saw no consequences. The group of children who saw the model punished for behaving aggressively showed the least imitative responses.
However, when the children from the group who had not been shown the model being rewarded were themselves offered rewards for behaving aggressively, they showed they had learned the model's behaviours just as those who saw the model's behaviour being reinforced. This supports the idea that just because a child has not performed an imitative behaviour, it does not mean it has not been learned.
This study showed that aggression can be learned through imitation of models. However, the likelihood of it being imitated depends on the child's perception of the consequences of the aggression. In a child who sees aggressive behaviour being punished, although the behaviour is learned, it is less likely to be imitated.
A further study which was undertaken over a fifteen year period concluded that childhood exposure to media violence predicts young adult aggressive behaviour. Importantly, and also where the question of whether children view cartoon violence to be realistic or not, it also concluded that children who identify with aggressive TV characters and perceive violence to be realistic are most at risk for later aggression.
Psychologist L.Rowell Huesmann et al undertook this study as a follow up of a 1977 study of 557 children aged 6-10. In this study children identified which violent TV shows they watched most, shows rated as very violent included the road runner cartoons, starskey and hutch and the million dollar man. The children stated whether they identified with the main characters aggression and whether they thought it was realistic. Now in their twenties the participants were re-interviewed as well as their families and spouses about their aggressive behaviours. The results found that both men and women who were high TV violence viewers as children were more likely to have engaged in anti-social behaviour and/or aggressive or violent acts some had been convicted of crimes at over three times the rate of other people.
It has been suggested that these results could be an indication that children with a tendency to behave aggressively may like to watch violent TV shows more than non-aggressive children. Friedrich and Stein (1973) found that viewing pro social programmes increased pro social behaviour. By allowing a toddler to watch tweenies for example in the belief it will exert a good influence over the child due to the nature of it eg.loving,caring and sharing behaviour between the characters, its natural to assume that it would work the other way around eg.power rangers exerting a bad influence over a child due to the frequent fighting scenes. Such programmes have the fighting characters depicted as heroes or 'goodies' which could suggest to a child that in some situations violence is an acceptable way of solving problems. It has also been suggested that on viewing violent TV programmes, children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others or more fearful of the world around them. Some would argue that if someone were to copy violent acts from TV that there must be 'something wrong' or that they must have had the tendency to be violent in the first place and it cannot be blamed on the media but is this the case when it concerns a very young child who has not fully learnt what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour yet?
Since Video games are a fairly new phenomenon not as much research has been undertaken on it's potentially harmful effects to the player as that of television. Some psychologists have argued that computer games that depict violence are much more harmful than TV and film because rather than just viewing, the player of the game is actively involved and identifying with the aggressor. On the other side of the debate some psychologists and parents have argued that these types of video games allow the individual taking part to release stress and aggression in a non-destructive way whilst also promoting quick thinking and decision making skills.
'The aggressive content of some computer games may be cathartic in that it allows players to release their stress in a non-destructive way and has the effect of relaxing the players' (Kestenbaum and Weinstein 1985). Other benefits include enhancing cognative skills, a sense of mastery, control and accomplishment and a reduction in other youth problems due to addictive interest (Anderson and Ford 1986)
However other psychologists disagree and argue that video games are likely to have an even stronger effect on children and young peoples aggression due to the fact the games are highly engaging and interactive, the games reward violent behavior, and because children repeat these behaviours over and over as they play (Gentile & Anderson, 2003). In 2004 several retailers agreed to take a video game called manhunt off their shelves after a fourteen year old boy was murdered by a 17 year old alleged to be obsessed by the game which awards points for killings though standard bodies rejected the idea that that there was a link.
Research has shown that children are spending increasing amounts of time playing video games - 13 hours per week for boys, on average, and 5 hours per week for girls.
Anderson and Bushman 2001 believe their research has shown that playing a lot of aggressive video games is related to the increase in having aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviours and that it is also related to children being less caring and helpful towards their peers. It also has shown that these effects have increased not just for children who have aggressive tendencies but for non-aggressive children too (Anderson et al 2004)
Certain types of music have also been blamed for bringing out aggression and antisocial behaviour whether it's the actions of the artist themselves or and/their lyrics. According to a campaigning group, Mothers against guns, in the past twelve months in England and Wales alone their has been nearly 10,000 incidents involving firearms and a total of 97 gun related murders, they argue that rappers and hip hop artists glorify violence,murders,drugs and guns and people, especially young people and adolescents look to these types of artists as their role models.
A study conducted by the Texas department of human services and the Iowa state university involved over five hundred students. In these trials the effects were examined on the students when they listened to seven violent songs and seven non violent songs .Results showed that the violent songs increased feelings of hostility without provocation or threat and that even humorous violent songs increased aggressive thought. This study investigated precursors to aggression rather than aggressive behaviour itself. More research is needed to determine whether there are short or long term affects as a result of listening to violent song lyrics.
It would certainly appear that there is a relationship between aggressive or violent content in the media and antisocial behaviour particularly in young children though there are steps that parents and society can take to prevent or reduce the risk of this effect. Research has shown that adult and parental supervision and commenting on programmes seems to reduce the affects of TV violence on children. This may be because it reduces the child's identification with the person committing the violent act, reduces the child's perception that the violence is real and reduces the likelihood that the child will act out the violent act in play immediately after seeing it on the television.
Children can be prevented from deliberately viewing violence on the TV but what if it's depicted in cartoons and although rare, sometimes in children's programmes? In this case an adult is likely to be unaware that such acts are contained in them.
The issue of video games and music which contains aggressive lyrics having a negative effect on a person remains debateable though some will continue to argue that both can be directly responsibly for a person committing acts of agression,others will argue that they can also have positive effects and that films,tv,music etc nor anything else can be responsible for a persons actions other than the individual themselves.
References
'Longitudinal Relations Between Children's Exposure To TV Violence and Their Aggressive and Violent Behaviour in Young Adulthood' 1977-1992, Huesmann,R,L et all, Developmental Psychology, Vol 39, No 2
'Television and Violence; Implications of the surgeon Generals Research Programme' Murray, JP (1973),American Psychologist, Vol 28 pg 472-478
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Video Games and Aggressive thoughts and Feelings' Anderson C.A & Dill K E (2000) , Journal of personality and social Psychology, Vol 78, no 4
'Exposure to Violent Media; the effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings' Anderson C.A et al, Journal of personality and Social Psychology, Vol 84,No 5
