Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Media violence and aggressive cognitions/behavior

A number of studies and research has been conducted surrounding the impact of media violence on the human brain, with a greater emphasis on their effects on cognition and behavior. There has been some skepticism regarding whether media violence actually affects us. Work being done at the University of Michigan and University of Potsdam is attempting to show a correlation between media violence and individuals’ behaviors, specifically if exposure to violent media stimuli have short term effects; other studies being conducted are cross-sectional and longitudinal studies relating to habitual media violence exposure. The research for such short term effect experiment is carried out by examining individuals’ skin conductance levels as well as lexical decision tasks. The goal here is not only to find a correlation between exposure to media violence and behavior, but also to possibly discover the underlying mechanism that causes violent input to cause aggressive output. This study concluded that habitual media violence exposure was unrelated to both unprovoked and provoked aggression for both genders. The researchers did not find any correlations between skin conductance levels and aggressive cognitions and behavior. However, the researchers did go on to explain a number of limitations in their studies. In taking these into account some of the findings did support the theory that media violence promoted aggression-enhancing cognitions and the likelihood of initiating proactive aggressive behavior.

Directly related to this line of research is if whether or not media violence can have effects in children and adults. Laura Stockdale explained in her lecture that there are varying reasons why people are exposed to such amount of media in the first place. She explains how males generally consume more media than females, this is due to the time males spend playing video games in comparison to females. She also explained the phenomenon of how increasingly younger children are being exposed to media violence, and the large amount of time that they spend consuming it. One interesting fact about this media consumption dealt with the parent’ education level, children whose parents had higher educational levels generally consumed less media. Stockdale’s studies focused on physical and relational aggression as a consequence of violent media consumption. Also important in the measure of media effects is pro-social behavior (helping others). The fact that the media is saturated with violence in the recent past means that relational and physical aggression will continue to persist in media and those who consume the media. Stockdale concludes that being exposed to media violence does affect emotional processing and thus highly influences aggression in not only adults, but children of all ages as well (more so for children, as the effects are greater in children exposed at young ages).
Overall, the research has shown that exposure to violent media creates a risk factor that can account for increased aggression. These studies, and numerous others, have also suggested that short term (and long term) exposure to violent media content increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior. The findings will help in better understanding the intricacies of how we process visual data and act upon the environment that we are exposed to. In this way we understand what kinds of media content are bad for us and what we can do to help our children and those affected by large amounts of violent media consumption.

Sources:
Krahé, Barbara, Ingrid Möller, L. Rowell Huesmann, Lucyna Kirwil, Juliane Felber, and Anja Berger. "Desensitization to Media Violence: Links with Habitual Media Violence Exposure, Aggressive Cognitions, and Aggressive Behavior." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100.4 (2012): 630-46. Print.


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

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