Media Influences on Aggression

Media Violence and Aggression

Violence, physical force or words intended to cause hurt or damage to someone or something - is shown in many forms of media, from movies, TV shows, video games, books and even music or podcasts that can contain violent descriptions.

There is a general belief that consuming violent media can cause people to feel angry, think and behave more aggressively, and even tolerate aggression from others more.

People worry that seeing violent behaviour in media gives children the opportunity to glamorise and mimic it, leading to increased feelings of aggression and hostile or violent behaviour in their everyday life.

Media Influence on Aggression: Psychology

Aggression can manifest itself in many ways. It is, therefore, fair to assume that numerous factors influence and even encourage it. Research needs to be carried out to determine what affects people's levels of aggression and how violent media may influence this.

There are three primary methodologies that psychologists examining media influences on aggression use for their research:

1. Experimental studies are usually conducted in the laboratory and look at short-term effects.
2. Correlational studies examine real-life variables and can be either short-term or longitudinal.
3. Meta-analyses combine several types of studies to make an overall judgement about the magnitude of the effect of a particular phenomenon, usually to see if a finding is universally applicable or represents a singular result.

Explanations of Media Influences on Aggression

There are a few explanations psychologists have about how violent media influences aggression;

• Desensitisation is the process of not having an emotional response due to continuous exposure to a certain activity or behaviour.
• Disinhibition refers to being unable to control reactions and impulses, which is believed to occur after exposure to violent video games.
• Cognitive priming involves having repeated exposure to violent media which causes a decrease in anxiety and an increase in aggressive behaviour when stimuli are perceived as aggressive in daily life. People react in real life the same way they would in or towards violence seen in media.

As already mentioned, it is suggested that people can learn behaviour through observation. This is known as social learning theory, which we will discuss more below.

Discuss: Media Influences on Aggression

There are critical theories explaining media influences on aggression. According to Social learning theory, those who see an attractive character are more likely to imitate this character’s actions through identification, including a violent hero.

Justification influences moral reasoning. If those who identify with a violent hero or feel that their actions are justified, they may alter their moral judgement to allow violent or aggressive actions.

When playing video games, aggression is sometimes encouraged through play, and you directly control the game character, which is a form of operant conditioning. The general model of affective aggression assumes that exposure to violent video games reinforces aggressive behaviour in the short and long term.

Outline and Evaluate: Media Influences on Aggression

Some studies have shown a correlative relationship between aggression and violent video games, but this is not causal. Consider the following studies and an evaluation of media influences on aggression.

Experimental Studies on Media and Aggression

Bartholow and Anderson (2002) conducted a laboratory study to determine the effects of violent video games on aggression.

They found that those who played the violent game chose significantly higher noise levels (5.97 decibels) than the nonviolent players (4.60 decibels). A game multiplied by sex interaction showed a more significant effect for men than for women.

Correlational Studies on Media and Aggression

DeLisi et al. (2013) studied 227 juvenile offenders with severe aggressive behaviour histories. They used structured interviews to collect data on aggression and video games.

They found a significant relationship between offenders’ aggressive behaviour, frequency of playing video games, and the extent to which they enjoyed them. Researchers also considered the effects of other constructs, such as psychopathy.

Fig. 2 - Video games are suggested to be a risk factor for aggressive behaviour.

Longitudinal Studies on Media and Aggression

Robertson et al. (2013) attempted to find an association between ‘excessive’ television viewing in childhood and aggressive behaviour in adulthood. They studied 1037 individuals born in New Zealand between 1972 and 1973 and measured their television viewing hours up to the age of 26.

The extremes (those who had watched the most TV) were more likely to be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and to exhibit aggressive traits. Simply put, this could mean that watching TV is a more significant factor in aggression than video games.

Meta-analysis on Media and Aggression

Anderson and Bushman (2001) conducted a meta-analysis of research showing that exposure to TV and violence in movies increases aggressive behaviour. Their review found that violent video games increase aggressive behaviour in young adults and children.

Experimental/non-experimental studies with men and women in field and laboratory settings support this. It also increases physiological arousal and aggression-related thoughts and feelings.

Evaluation of Media Influences on Aggression

Let’s study the strengths and weaknesses of the theory of media influences on aggression.

• Experimental studies allow us to establish a causal relationship between media aggression and aggressive behaviour. Longitudinal studies investigate changes in aggressive behaviour over time. This factor is a strength because people are viewed as active consumers rather than passive recipients, which is more realistic.

• However, these studies are prone to confounding variables (when there are so many other variables at play that we cannot identify the effects of each variable on aggressive behaviour). Measures of aggression in laboratory contexts are often artificial and unrealistic, affecting the reliability and validity of the results.

• However, allowing realistic forms of aggression in an experiment would be unethical, leaving researchers with no other choice. In these laboratory situations, there is no fear of retaliation. The participant is ‘safely’ aggressive, whereas, in the real world, one might act differently if one is afraid that another person will retaliate.

• Some studies on the influence of media on aggression are correlational. We cannot draw causal conclusions from correlational studies. There are no manipulated or controlled variables and no random assignment of participants.

  Imagine a positive correlation between violent video games and aggressive behaviour. We could not determine if this was due to the socialisation hypothesis (aggressive media causes people to become more aggressive) or the selection hypothesis (aggressive people choose to consume aggressive media). So we do not know what the cause is.

• Many studies compare the effects of playing a nonviolent game with a violent game to examine aggression. However, because the games may not be similar in content, this could affect the outcome of the studies and result in an invalid study. There is a tendency in scientific research only to publish statistically significant results, which is a problem because we do not have access to all the non-statistically vital research that could tell us just as much.