Effects Of Media Violence on Aggression

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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 had comparable levels of observational learning, but those who had seen the adult punished did not replicate the behaviour.

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Evaluation and Criticism of Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Studies who show children imitate violent behaviour seen on television are consistent with social learning theory.

Anderson and Gill carried out two experiments.

The first showed that young men who are usually aggressive may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of repeated exposure to violent games. It was found that students who reported playing more violent video games in school engaged in more aggressive behaviour.  

The second showed that everybody can become temporarily more aggressive after even a brief exposure to violent games. In the first study 227 college ...

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