How Much Influence Does Media Have On Violence?

            New research on video games and violence has made a link between shooting games, such as Halo and Call of Duty and an individuals ability "to inhibit impulsive control." Shooting games like Halo and Call of Duty increase an individual's decision making ability but in turn "reduce the person's ability to inhibit impulsive behavior.” This behavior leads the person to "proactive executive control" which means video games that require shooting and violence "increase aggressive behavior." Craig Anderson, who is the Director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University had this to say, "We believe that any game that requires the same type of rapid responding as in most first-person shooters may produce similar effects on proactive executive control, regardless of violent content." Anderson and his colleagues have found that "playing action video games is associated with better visuospatial attention skills, but also reduced proactive cognitive control." In one particular study Anderson and colleague Edward Swing "assessed the TV and video game habits of 422 people to examine the links between screen time and aggression." What they found was that "violent media exposure had a direct association with greater aggression and anger/hostility.”
         

            According to a study published in the Journal Pediatrics, researchers Lindsey A. Robertson, Helena A. McAnally and Robert J. Hancox showed that "watching excessive amounts of TV as a child or adolescent, in which most of the content contains violence was causally associated with antisocial behavior in early adulthood.” Evidence that is missing from these results is a correlation showing that watching violent media leads to violent crimes being committed. However, a study conducted by The Lancet revealed that "exposure to media violence leads to aggression, desensitization toward violence and lack of sympathy for victims of violence, particularly in children." In addition, "the surgeon general, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association all consider media violence exposure a risk factor for actual violence."

            Dr. Laura Stockdale from the Department of Psychology at Loyola University Chicago explained to us in her lecture that males generally watch more TV and play video games more than females and thus they are more likely to show more aggressive tendencies. Dr. Stockdale also made the correlation between the amounts of time a child is exposed to media is directly related to the parent's education level. More educated parents have kids that do not have as much access to media as kids of parent's that are less educated. Dr. Stockdale said that "exposure to media violence affects emotional processing and influences aggression in adults and children alike." Dr. Stockdale's research showed that the more exposure one has to violent media, it is more likely that the individual will show more aggression. Dr. Stockdale's results like other researchers conclude that the more exposure one has to violent media, the more likely one will show increased aggressive behavioral tendencies. There are still many questions that need to be answered as to how much of an influence violent media plays on the youth and if in fact that there is validity to the statement that "one is driven to commit acts of violence just by observing violence in the media." 

Sources:

Pozios, Vasilis K., Praveen R. Kambam, and H. Eric Bender. "Does Media Violence Lead to the Real Thing?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2013. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.

Stockdale, Laura. "Media Violence and Your Brain: Can Exposure to Violence Really Lead You to See the World through Blood-tinted Glasses?" Lecture.

Society for Personality and Social Psychology. "Video games boost visual attention but reduce impulse control." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 August 2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130804081115.htm>.