desensitisation

• Desensitisation


  Repeated viewing of aggressive media leads to a reduction of anxiety and less physiological arousal, resulting in negative attitudes towards violence to weaken and reduced empathy for victims and their injuries
• Weisz and Earls (1988)

  • Showed participants the feature film Straw Dogs, which contained a prolonged and graphic scene of rape, and then had them watch a re-enactment of a rape trial, finding that male viewers of Straw Dogs showed a greater acceptance of rape myths and sexual aggression, and expressed less sympathy towards the rape victim
• Krahé et al. (2011) found that participants who were habitual viewers of violent media showed lower levels of arousal when watching violent video clips, and this lower arousal was correlated with unprovoked (proactive) aggression
• Krahé et al. (2011) failed to find a link between media viewing, lower arousal and provoked (reactive) aggression, suggesting that desensitisation may not explain the impact of violent media exposure on all forms of aggressive behaviour
• Catharsis


  Viewing violent media acts as a safety mechanism allowing people to release aggressive impulses without the need to behave violently