Effects Of Violence On Television And Aggression example essay topic

Since the advent of television there has been growing concern about the apparent effects of violence on the attitudes, values and behaviors of children. Much of the research has focused on the effects of violence on television and aggression expressed by children. Some researchers and theorists believe that violence on television is linked to human aggression while I do not believe a conclusive body of evidence exists to justify this view. The debate surrounding whether violence on television influences children's aggressive behavior has typically occurred within a social learning framework.

Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral and environmental influences of the individual. A prominent proponent of social learning theory is Albert Bandura. The social learning theory of Bandura emphasizes the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others. Two basic principles are involved in observational learning: acquisition and performance. Acquisition describes the response by which the behavior is learned through observation. Performance is the process by which the observer acts out the newly learned response.

Acquisition of a behavior however, does not automatically lead to its performance. Whether or not aggressive behavior acquired will be acted out depends on the perceived consequences of the actors behavior for the actor and the consequences of aggressing for the observer. Furthermore, whether a learned aggressive response is performed depends to whether the observer and / or actor is rewarded for doing so. The effect of reinforcement on aggressive behavior has been illustrated by numerous researchers.

One of the most noted being a series of "bobo doll" studies conducted by Bandura. In a 1965 Bandura study, children saw aggressive behavior of a model being either rewarded, punished or suffering no consequences. Children who observed a model being punished subsequently had fewer imitative aggressive responses than did those who saw the model rewarded or treated indifferently. Later, each child was offered a reward for performing the response carried out earlier by the model. The addition of this incentive cancelled out the effects on imitative aggression of reward and punishment of the original model. Children in all three treatment conditions has apparently learned the model's behavior equally well with reward acting as a facilitation for performance of these learned responses.

Other studies also illustrated that children are more likely to model behavior if they identified with the model and if the model had an admired status and the behavior expressed had a functional value. (Bandura, 1969) These findings have direct bearing on the implications for the effects of violence shown on television. In a recent study in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media (1995), it was found that good characters, or heroes, commit 40 percent of violent acts; More than one-third of programs feature bad characters who aren't punished and physical aggression that is condoned; and that more than 70 percent of aggressors show no remorse for their violence and experience no criticisms or penalty when violence occurs. This suggests, working within a social learning framework, that violence viewed on television by children will result in increased levels of expressed aggression in children. Since according to this theory it is under these conditions, where violence is seen as desirable and unpunished, that modeling is most likely to occur. Bandura's studies imply that environmental influences moderate and control the expression of aggression.

One of the most influential environmental influences on a child's life is parental. A number of researchers are of the opinion that any negative effects imposed by viewing violence on television can be negated through parental reinforcement. It has also been shown that parents increase aggression through the use of physical punishment and supporting and encouraging such behavior (Neapolitan, 1981). However, this evidence does not directly address the existence of a link between children's viewing habits and aggressive behavior. In sum, according to the social learning theory, television violence has an impact on expressed levels of aggression in children by the following process; children learn to be aggressive by watching actors on television and then model the actors aggressive behaviors. Television violence can make children more accepting of aggressive behavior, that is, they become desensitized to the effects of violence (possibly through habituation).

An alternate way of presenting this is that children learn new violent behaviors by encoding, rehearsing, storing and retrieval of scripts for aggression. Criticisms One of the major criticisms concerns the validity of laboratory experiments. The viewing environment set up in experiments is artificial and cannot be generalized to real-world television experiences. This is an important since according to social learning theory a key determinant of the likelihood to model behavior is the extent to which a child can identify with a particular model. This is supported by research illustrating an effect of realistically filmed violence on children's levels of aggression and no effect when unrealistically filmed violence was viewed by children.

(Noble, 1973). An explanation for performance of modeled aggression during laboratory experiments could be explained by experimental demands for imitation rather than aggressiveness. Friedrich-Cover and Huston maintain that although such demand may occur, there is no evidence that it accounts for the effects of violent television. On the contrary their work found that violent television is more likely to produce aggressive behavior when the experimenter leaves the child alone than when the adult remains during the test for aggression. (Stein and Friedrich, 1975). It has also been argued that the stimuli used in laboratory experiments were not typical of normal program viewing.

Most children's television diet consists of pro-social as well as aggressive models. It is therefore difficult to isolate the effects of violent television programs on children. This suggests that laboratory studies do not misrepresent levels of violence shown to children in the real world. This concern is however legitimate and should be investigated in further research.

In conclusion, the weight of social learning theory and convergent evidence supports the likelihood that television contributes to aggression in many children.