With reference to psychological literature, explain the underlying processes regarding the effects of media violence and increased aggression.

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Media Violence and Aggression                                                                                                       

Assignment

  1. (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 posit that exposure to violent television, movies, video games and music increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior by people exposed to them (p. 40).

Aggressive behavior or aggression as postulated by social psychologist such as Freud, and Lorenz, (1974) is defined as an innate urge to aggress against others (Baron, Branscombe, & Byrne, 2009).  Baron and Richardson, (1994) and later Anderson and Bushman, (2002) posit a definition for aggression which state that the concept can be described as behaviors intended to injure another (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2010). Additionally, Baron and Richardson (1994) proposed that persons to whom the behavior is directed towards is motivated to avoid such treatment about to be inflicted upon him or her (Hewstone & Stroebe, 2003).  Early Social psychologist such as Berkowitz, (1989) and later Zillmann, (1994), suggest that individuals are prone to harm others because of external conditions which drives one to perform acts of aggression, a theory referred to as the drive theory (Baron, Branscombe, & Byrne, 2009). However, whether the intent to harm is internal or external, any drive towards aggressive behavior is one that should be curbed to reduce violence in society.

One of the early drive theories was that of the frustration-aggression theory which was later modified and recently states ‘that any unpleasant simulation will lead to emotional aggression to the extent that it generates unpleasant feelings (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2010). Frustration-aggression theory further suggests that aggressive behavior is dependent on two factors: the characteristic of the person and the situation itself. Hence, it can be stated that one individual may react in a particular way because of the situation, while another individual may behave in a completely different manner. For example, if I am frustrated I may choose to indulge in comfort food while someone else may choose to pick a fight. This is because of the bi-directional hypothesis which states that individuals who have a predisposition for violence, exposes themselves to violence media, Bandura, (1977) refers to this process as ‘reciprocal determinism’ (Anderson, et al., 2003). Modern theory such as the general aggression model (GAM) however, posits that aggression is ‘triggered by a wide range of input variables that influence arousal, affective stages and cognition (Baron, Branscombe, & Byrne, 2009).’ The general aggression model is an integration of the various processes of aggression which includes social learning theory, excitation transfer, and priming or cueing (Carnagey, Anderson, & Bartholomew, 2007).  In reviewing the literature on the processes regarding the effects of media violence and increase aggression, there exist processes that account for both short-term and long-term effects. Aggression and violent behavior is said to be caused by multiple factors which converge over time. It can be suggested that factors that promote aggressive behavior in persons, such as media violence, can effectively contribute to increasingly aggressive and violent behavior years later (Huesmann & Taylor, 2006) .

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The social learning theory as proposed by Bandura, (1973) is one of the main theories which highlighted the relationship between media violence and aggression. Bandura theory incorporates the concept of modeling and observational learning which are key underlying processes with regards to media violence and aggressive behavior (Kenrick, Neuberg, & Cialdini, 2010). The social learning theory is associated with both the short and long term effects of media violence on aggressive behavior and is supported by Huesmann and Taylor, (2006), who postulated that media violence has both short-term and long-term effects which include observational learning and mimicry among others. Anderson, ...

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