Cognitive Priming

• Repeated viewing of aggressive media, especially game playing, can provide us with a script of how violent situations may play out.
• According to Huesmann, the script is stored in the memory as a SCHEMA, which makes us primed to be aggressive.
• When we perceive an aggressive cue in the environment, the script is triggered in a non-conscious, implicit, manner (which can direct our behaviour without us being fully aware), leading to aggressive behaviour or a general increase in the likelihood of aggression.
• Long-term exposure to violent media leads to frequent priming of the script. This leads to a lower activation threshold for learnt aggressive scripts. This means much easier activation of scripts, where they become very easily triggered upon perceiving an aggressive cue.