media influence

• normally when we witness violent actions we experience physiological arousal associated with the sympathetic nervous system such as increased heart rate and higher blood pressure. But when children in particular repeatedly view aggression on TV or play violent video games they become habituated or used to the effects of aggression and the physiological arousal caused by it
• a stimulus that was aversive before after repeated viewing has less of an impact leading to less physiological arousal than before and less anxiety leading to feeling more comfortable with aggression
• desensitization also has a psychological impact as repeated exposure to violent media leads to beliefs that using aggression to resolve conflicts is socially acceptable leading to more aggression
• most people hold beliefs that violence and aggression is antisocial and harmful. So they have strong social and psychological inhibitions against using aggression to resolve interpersonal conflicts. But restraints are loosened after repeated exposure to violent media
• aggressive behavior becomes normalized by violent media and the more we expose ourselves to violent media the more norms surrounding aggression in situations go from no-acceptable to acceptance
• if aggression is justified or seen as revenge for someone, the potrayal minimizes the effects of violence on the victim and the victim is rewarded and made to appear normal this makes disinhibition more likely leading to more aggression
• repeated viewing of aggressive media especially fame playing can provide us with a script about how violent situations may play out
• according to Huesmann scrips are stored in memory making us primed to be aggressive so when we perceive an aggressive cue in the environment, the script is triggered in a non-conscious manner leading to more aggression in general or increasing the likelihood of aggression
• Long term exposure to violent media leads to frequent activation and priming of the script. This lowers the activation threshold for learnt aggressive scripts leading to much earlier activation of scripts so scripts become easily triggered upon perceiving even the most slightest aggressive cues in the environment
• lab based experiments have shown that the effect of violent computer games to be responsible for increasing aggression
• Bartholow and Anderson had students play either a violent computer game (mortal kombat) or a non violent computer game (pga tournament golf) for ten minutes before completing a taylor competitive reaction time task - a measure of agression in which students delivered blasts of white noise at chosen volumes to punish a non-existent opponent
• violent game players selected higher noise levels compared to non violent game players (mean noise blast level: 5.97 vs4.60). This shows exposure to violent computer games makes people more likely to display simulated aggression to to others
• the increase in simulated aggression can be explained in terms of cognitive priming. Exposure to violent computer games forms a script of how aggression plays out. This is stored in memory as a schema and makes participants primed to be aggressive. Aggressive cues in the environment from the noise blast task triggers the script non-consciously leading to increased levels of aggression
• correlational studies also indicate that playng violent computer games increase aggression
• DeLisi studied 227 juvenile offenders all with histories of serious aggressive behaviors such as hitting a teacher or parent. Using structured interviews they gathered data on several measures of aggression and violent computer game-playing
• DeLisi found a significant positive correlation between aggressive behaviors and how often offenders played violent video games and how much they enjoyed them. This demonstrates there is a link between violent video games and real-life aggression
• exposure to violent computer games caused participants to behavior habituated to the effects of aggression and the unpleasant physiological arousal caused by it
• as a result there is less physiological arousal than before and less anxiety. So they feel more comfortable with aggression and believe that it is acceptable to us it to resolve conflicts.