A03

• A strength of desensitisation is that there is research to support it

  For example, Krahe (2011) measured skin conductance (measure of physiological arousal) of participants while watching violent and non-violent films.

  Explain: The results showed that habitual viewers of violent media showed lower levels of physical and anxious arousal when watching the violent films and this lower arousal was also correlated with proactive aggression in a ‘noise blast’ task.

  Link: Therefore, this adds validity to this explanation as desensitised individuals were more likely to engage in aggressive behaviour.
• Point: A strength of the disinhibition explanation is the presence of supporting evidence.

  Evidence: Berkowitz and Alioto (1973) showed that participants that saw a film depicting aggression as vengeance gave more shocks of longer duration to a confederate.

  Explain: This is because the vengeance is presented as justified aggression which is seen as more socially acceptable.

  Link: Therefore, this adds validity to the explanation as it demonstrates the link between removing social constraints of aggression and subsequent aggressive behaviour.
• Point: A strength of cognitive priming is that it has real world practical application

  Evidence: For example, psychologists propose interventions that challenge readily available hostile cognitive biases which lead to violent solutions as alternatives aren’t considered.

  Explain: This means that habitual violent media users are encouraged instead to consider alternatives to aggressive behaviour, such as humour or negotiation.

  Link: Therefore, this adds validity as it can potentially help reduce aggressive behaviour in some individuals in the real world.
• Point: A limitation of cognitive priming is confounding variables in research.

  Evidence: For example, Zendle (2018) argues that violent games tend to have much more complex gameplay compared to non-violent games, which could act as a confounding variable.

  Explain: This revealed that when complexity was controlled, the priming effect of violent video games disappeared.

  Link: Therefore, this questions the validity of studies into priming as the results may be partly because of confounding variables.