Troubling Short and Long-Term Violent Media Effects on Children - Essay Example

February 28, Troubling Short and Long-Term Violent Media Effects on Children Whenever a public violent shooting takes places, some individuals and organisations quickly blame violent media for its causes. Definitely, violent media producers deny the relationship between their products and actual violence, as they insist that there is no evidence that violent media alone causes violent human behaviours (Anderson and Bushman 353). Two studies aim to clarify the relationship between media violence and aggressive behaviours in real life, the study from Anderson and Bushman and Huesmann et al. These studies used different research designs, data-collection methods, and theories to prove that children who consume violent media are more violent than those who do not because they learn and model these behaviours from violent TV characters that they identify with. The two articles provide compelling evidence that violent media has significant short-term and long-term effects on children’s development of aggressive thoughts, emotions, and actions, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, intelligence, and parenting styles and characteristics. The two articles are similar in examining the effects of violent media on children. Anderson and Bushman conducted a meta-analysis on studies that investigated the impacts of playing video games on aggression (i.e. aggressive cognition, affect, and behavior), physiological arousal, or prosocial behaviour. They wanted to know if playing violent media is connected to aggressive thoughts, emotions, or actions, or all of the above, and what the underlying mechanisms are for these connections. Huesmann et al. also studied the effect of violent media on children, particularly how watching violent TV in childhood affected later young adult aggression. They conducted a follow-up study of the 1977 longitudinal study that the authors did on 557 children who lived in Chicago. They considered other factors too that can explain the media-behaviour relationship, including preference for violence and third variables (Huesmann et al. 204). These two articles are both interested in studying the effects of media violence on children’s aggression levels. Though these studies share similar general research topics on violent media effects on children, the two articles are different in their research designs because Anderson and Bushman used a meta-analysis design, while Huesmann et al. continued their longitudinal study. Anderson and Bushman conducted a meta-analysis on existing studies, where meta-analysis refers to comparing and contrasting results from different studies, so that sources of agreement and disagreement and patterns of outcomes can be determined, which will give light to new insights about the topic. Anderson and Bushman went beyond ordinary empirical research by not concentrating on performing one research alone. Instead, they combined and analysed the results of several empirical studies using a relevant and valid criteria for the selection process. Huesmann et al. did not use meta-analysis because they continued a longitudinal study that has three data-collection periods. They interviewed their young participants when they were in their first to second grades, and then on their third and fourth grades, and finally, when they reached 20 to 22 years old. From the original sampling of 557, they were only able to collect data from 450 adults, which they called “archival follow-up sample” (Huesmann et al. 204). These differences indicate different ways in conducting the research on the same topic. Besides differences in the research design, the studies have different theories that they based their conceptual frameworks on. These conceptual frameworks guided the analysis of both papers because they offer the variables and concepts’ definitions and some explanations on how the data can be analysed, particularly how and/or why the relationships exist or do not exist between the independent and dependent variables. Anderson and Bushman developed the General Aggression Model (GAM) based on the studies on aggression of other scholars and their own past studies. GAM states that aggressive behaviours are based on learning, activation, and enacting aggression-based knowledge in memory, such as violence-oriented scripts and schemas (Anderson and Bushman 355). GAM asserts that violent media affect aggression through priming aggressive thoughts, boosting arousal, and creating aggressive emotions (or affect), while the long term effects of violence on aggressive behaviours are also due to learning aggressive scripts and schemas (Anderson and Bushman 355). Huesmann et al. mentioned general aggression theories in their review of literature, but included third-variable theories. Third-variable theories assert that other factors, especially demographic, family, and personal features, correlate TV viewing with violent behaviours (Huesmann et al. 202). They also considered the mechanisms of excitation transfer and general arousal in understanding the relationship between media violence and human violence. Furthermore, Huesmann et al. stressed that these theories may not even be mutual and they can altogether explain differences in violent cognition, emotions, and behaviours across age levels (202). The two studies use different theories to some extent, where Anderson and Bushman depended on their own theory, while Huesmann et al. explored diverse different theories in studying violent media effects. The differences in research design and theories affect differences in research data collection-methods too. Anderson and Bushman developed their criteria for relevance in searching the PsycINFO database from 2000. The criteria included actual playing of the video games, and not mere watching it, while the key words for the search are “(video* or computer or arcade) and (game*) and (attack*or fight*or aggress*or violen*or hostil*or ang* or arous* or prosocial or help*)” (Anderson and Bushman 356). As for Huesmann et al., they did not study other people’s research but experienced the difficult process of finding the children who participated in their study before. The search is important because it means that the researchers did not influence these kids for fifteen years after their last research contact with them. For data-collection, Huesmann et al. used different methods, including surveys and self-reports from the children participants (who later on were adults) and their parents, as well as archival data, including criminal conviction records and moving traffic violation records to truly evaluate adult aggression in real life. Hence, these studies showed sharp differences in how they approached the data collection process. Despite these differences in research designs, theories, and data-collection methods, the two showed similar findings, where media violence is shown to increasing childhood aggression in cognition, affect, and behaviours in the short and long run. Anderson and Bushman learned that playing video games increased aggression for males and females across age levels in both experimental and non-experimental conditions and with short and/or long-term effects; exposure to violent media decreased prosocial behaviour; and exposure to violent media is connected to violent emotions and physiological arousal, which support the assumed correlations in the GAM framework of the authors (358). Huesmann et al. agreed with the correlation between media violence and aggression that Anderson and Bushman discovered. Huesmann et al. learned that children who identified with aggressive characters believed that TV violence was realistic and they had aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behaviours; for both male and female subjects, exposure to more TV violence increased childhood identification with same-sex aggressive TV characters and showed more violent behaviours as young adults; violent TV viewing affected aggression despite controlling the effects of social class, intellectual capabilities, and parenting characteristics (i.e. parenting style); females showed more indirect than direct aggression than males; identification with same-sex violent TV characters intensified violent effects more for males than females; aggressive females consumed more violent media than male counterparts as they grew older; and children’s aggressiveness did not affect their TV and movie preferences (216-218). These studies agree that media violence in particular has a large impact on children’s aggression. These studies providing overwhelming empirical evidence that violent media consumption is correlated with violent thoughts, emotions, and actions. The correlation can be explained by learning, arousal, and identification with violent media characters, and not through gender, intelligence, social class, and parenting characteristics. The third variables, apparently, are not as strong as violent media in shaping aggressive behaviours that have short term and long term effects. Hence, these articles argue that violent media is not good for kids because they lack the maturity in processing it as non-realistic and because they have difficulty in understanding that violence is not an ethical or moral way of dealing with people and situations. Works Cited Anderson, Craig A., and Brad J. Bushman. “Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature. Psychological Science 12.5 (2001): 353-359. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. Huesmann, L. Rowell, Moise-Titus, Jessica, Podolski, Cheryl-Lynn, and Leonard D. Eron. “Longitudinal Relations Between Children’s Exposure to TV Violence and Their Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young Adulthood: 1977–1992.” Developmental Psychology 39.2 (2003): 201–221. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. Read More