The link between the media and aggression

Introduction We are doing a study on the link between the media and aggression. I am studying whether or not; aggression in the media has an effect on children today. Also I am going to go into great detail of aggression and then media, and then I am going to go in to detail the link between the two. There are many different types of aggression and different ways of expressing aggression. Here is the dictionary definition of aggression- the act for an instance of commencing an attack, invasion or quarrel; an assault. In this dictionary there is also a psychology definition saying; hostile action or behaviors. Aggression is very common but most people find it hard to define. Psychologists have split aggression into two simple groups. The first group is called instrumental aggression; it's to do with competition and is used to achieve goals. Also it can be about protecting your self e.g. a victim of a fight or maybe to get your own way like a child may ask another child for a toy and when they are refused they might show aggression towards the other child. This type of aggression isn't necessarily accompanied by anger. The second type of aggression is hostile aggression. Hostile aggression is aimed to damage someone e.g. in a fight if you are the one who starts the fight then you purposely do to harm that person. This type of aggression is usually accompanied by anger.

  • Word count: 1610
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Effects Of Media Violence on Aggression

The effects of Media Violence of Aggression Moneer Gul Introduction My coursework project is a study on how media violence affects a persons aggression levels. I carried out a study into how a person's film preference may reflect on how aggressive they are. Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1963) carried out a study of observational learning in which young children were shown adults interacting with a character called "Bobo Doll". In one film, the adults attacked Bobo, and in another they did not. Children were shown one of the two films. The adults attacked Bobo in a distinctive manner - they used a hammer in some cases, and in others threw the doll in the air and shouted "Pow, Boom". As a result, they could be sure that if the behaviour was repeated, it was learned rather than spontaneous. Later, Bandura (1965) carried out the same experiment, but showed the adult who behaved aggressively either being punished or rewarded. Those children, who had seen the adult rewarded, and those who had seen the adult neither rewarded nor punished, behaved more aggressively than those who had seen the adult punished. It could be that the children who had seen the adult punished simply couldn't remember how the adult had behaved. However, when Bandura rewarded all of the children for imitating the behaviour of the adult, this was shown not to be the case. Thus, all three groups of children

  • Word count: 1267
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Does Media Violence Lead to Aggression and Societal Violence?

Man-Ju Lin Sara Talpos English 125 6 April 2006 Does Media Violence Lead to Aggression and Societal Violence? In 2003 Devin Moore, a teenager from Alabama, was caught and brought to police station on suspicion of stealing a car. In the police station, Moore said to Ace Mealer, a 911 dispatcher, "Life is a video game. You've got to die sometime" (par. 16). He suddenly grabbed the gun and shot three police officers, then drove off in a police car but was later apprehended. On October 9th 2005, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Moore had played the violent video game Grand Theft Auto day and night for months. This violent video game has sold more than 35 million copies, with worldwide sales approaching $2 billion. It is a game that provides the pseudo-world that is governed by the laws of depravity (Associated Press). The famous case of Devin Moore motivated by this game serves as an evidence for the "copycat" crimes, which raised the concern on the effect of media violence. The debate over the effects of media violence began in 1920s when researchers in the United States and Great Britain began studying the effect of the introduction of television. The issue of media violence did not draw much attention in the United States until the Columbine school shootings on April 20, 1999. Two teenager students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, carried weapons and killed

  • Word count: 2423
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Critically discuss the evidence that viewing violent media causes aggression

Critically discuss the evidence that viewing violent media causes aggression From time to time, the media industry comes under political attack. Allegations are frequently made that viewing violent media has an adverse affect on the viewer. It appears that many a time allegations are linked to a particular tragedy at that moment e.g. the Hungerford Massacre, the columbine shootings, the James Bulger murder, etc. A moral panic is created and people look for something or someone to blame and the media is an easy target. The allegations usually has no support, people have not examined the facts or read the evidence. Violence in the media causing violence in society is such a common claim that probably most people will think its true. Many blame crime rates on the media but the British crime survey shows that the victimisation rates have fallen back to what they were in 1981 so if crime has fallen but yet there is more violence within the media there is no correlation between the two. In Hungerford 1987, Michael Ryan shot dead 16 people before killing himself with a pistol. The media blamed Rambo films for the Hungerford disaster simply because he had a headband on his head at the time. However there has been no evidence ever found that Michael Ryan has ever seen a Rambo film. The Bulger case was another case where the horror film Childs play 3 was blamed for the

  • Word count: 1079
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Biological Sciences
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With reference to psychological literature, explain the underlying processes regarding the effects of media violence and increased aggression.

Media Violence and Aggression Assignment . (a) With reference to psychological literature, explain the underlying processes regarding the effects of media violence and increased aggression. (b) Discuss possible ways of counteracting the effects of media violence. The effects of media violence on aggressive behavior have attracted many researchers over the past decade (Bandura, 1961, Berkowitz, 1962, Zillmann, 1988, Anderson, 2003, Huesmann, 2007). As individuals in society displayed more aggressiveness in their behaviors, researchers have endeavored to identify the influence of media violence on person’s action, with the aim of proposing intervention strategies that would minimize the effects of media violence (Baron, Branscombe, & Byrne, 2009). Huesmann and Taylor, (2006) define media violence as ‘visual portrayals of acts of physical aggression by one human or human-like character against another (p 395).’ Human-like or fictional media violence can be encountered on medium such as television and film, video games and music. Psychologists such as Anderson, Berkowitz, Donnerstein, Huesmann, Johnson, Linz, Malamuth and Wartella, (2003) believe that fictional social interaction contributes to increased aggressive behaviors in individuals. These psychologists further

  • Word count: 3324
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Biological Sciences
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Theories of Aggression

Theories of Aggression The social learning theory emphasises that we learn from the example of others, as well as from direct experiences with rewards and punishments. One type of behaviour that can apply to the social learning theory is aggression. According to the theory, children will be aggressive if regularly exposed to aggressive models such parents, same-sex peers and media figures. Reinforcement is another factor to consider as when people see someone getting what they want by being aggressive; they are likely to imitate them. Albert Bandura conducted an experiment to demonstrate the social learning theory of aggression. He took a group of young boys and girls, and individually took them into a nursery, and the child in a corner of the room with a set of toys. The model was seated in the opposite corner with a selection of toys, which included a 5ft Bobo doll and a mallet. In the non-aggressive condition the model played with the toys. In the aggressive condition the model repeatedly hit the doll with the mallet, and was verbally aggressive towards the doll. The children were then taken into a room with a Bobo doll and a mallet, and they too began hitting the doll and used many of the same verbal terms as the model used. The children who were with the non-aggressive model did not hit the Bobo doll, and showed no aggression. This shows strong evidence that children

  • Word count: 796
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Biological Sciences
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Aggression and the Social Learning Theory

This essay will address how the study of social influence can be used to explain acts of aggression and what can be done to reduce the negative impact of social influence on human behaviour. The first part of the essay will concentrate on explaining acts of aggression, with the focus on aggression being learned from role models or media, with the second part of the essay focussing on how aggression can be reduced, and the impact it has on human behaviour, using the social learning theory as the main concentration for reduction. "Social Influence. Process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people" (Hogg Michael A & Vaughan Graham M, 2005, p244) Aggression is a physical or verbal behaviour that is intended to hurt someone. There are two main types of aggression, hostile arising from anger and it's aim is to hurt, and instrumental which aims to hurt only with a particular goal in mind. Social influence considers an individual's need to comply, obey and conform. Conformity occurs in many situations where social norms are in existence calling for 'proper behaviour'; obedience is the impact of power from an individual in a perceived position of authority either real or imagined, compliance is the response to a request for others to go along with the group majority. There are three areas of theory relating to aggression,

  • Word count: 2362
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Does the exposure to violence in the media cause increased levels of aggression and violence in young people essay

Does the exposure to violence in the videogames cause increased levels of aggression and violence in young people? Children are influenced by many media sources; these images seen early in their lives affect them in many ways. In a busy 21st century, parents share their role of nurturing the minds of their children with Institutions who hold their own agendas; they output dominant ideologies with which they mould society into obedience, shaping Britain in to a society who mostly agree with their hegemonic superiors. When a piece of media challenges the structure of society, institutions such as News Corp create a moral panic by showing the product as a menace to society's accepted values and way of life. An example of this would be the mass coverage of violence in video games, most recently with the releases of next generation console games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Grand Theft Auto is a video game which glorifies and rewards violence. It endorses by way of the game, murder, theft and extreme violence, In the same way, Call of Duty glorifies war fare, enabled by graphical detail in the killing of other soldiers; conglomerates of News Corp such as British newspapers, The Sun and The Daily Mail raise up a witch hunt against these games reaching out to the fears of the concerned parent. The Sun released an article in 2006 titled "Video games

  • Word count: 2584
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Media Studies
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Personality and aggression

Sports psychology assignment 1 Personality and aggression As a sports physiologist we are interested in how individuals behave during sports performance. There are many factors to this. Psychology is defined as "the science of behaviour" Sport psychology is the scientific study of people and there behaviours in a sporting context. There are many differences in individual sports participants that influence there behaviour. These differences have effects on the outcomes Historically, one of the most popular issues in sport psychology concerns the relationship between personality and sports performance. Fisher (1994) found over 1000 studies have been conducted on personality and sports performance. From all the studies it is popularly believed that personality contributes to success in sport. It is also believed that "valued personality attributes may be developed through sports participation". (Horn 2002) One of the most often asked, and most difficult to answer questions by a sports psychologist is: what is personality? Personality is very difficult to define and is scientifically much more complex than most parts of psychology or any study of humans. Allport (1937) gave a definition as "The dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustments to the environment" Personality can be defined as: "Personality

  • Word count: 2347
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Biological Sciences
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Outline and evaluate two theories of aggression.

Outline and evaluate two theories of aggression. Baron described aggression as 'behaviour designed to harm or injure another who is motivated to avoid such treatment'. According to Berkowitz (1989) and Bandura (1965) although the aggressive behaviour in animals can be explained in terms of instinctive drives, aggression in humans is the product of learning. They claim that aggressive behaviour is learned either through direct experience or by observing others. Learning by direct experience is derived from Skinner's principles of operant reinforcement. In other words if a child pushes another child and as a result gets something they want, the action is reinforced and is more likely to occur in similar situations in the future. Learning through observing others usually occurs when a child sees a role model behaving in a particular way and reproduces the behaviour. The child is then said to be imitating the behaviour of the model. For someone to imitate behaviour such as aggression, it must be seen to be rewarding in some way. Bandura and his colleagues carried out a series of experiments involving children exposed to the aggressive behaviour of an adult model. By varying the conditions under which the model was viewed, as well as the consequences for the model's behaviour, Bandura was able to develop a social learning model of aggression. He found that children were more

  • Word count: 1240
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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