TV and Film Violence
Does the violence in films and on TV contribute to violence in society?
This question has been debated for decades. During that time some 2,500
books and articles have been written on the effects of TV and film violence
on human behavior.
In this article we’re going to summarize some the latest thinking on this
subject.
The results of one of the most extensive studies ever done on the subject
of violence and TV were released in 2003.
Researchers followed 329 subjects over 15 years. They found that those who
as children were exposed to violent TV shows were much more likely to later
be convicted of crime. Researchers said that, „Media violence can affect
any child from any family,“ regardless of social class or parenting.
Girls who watched more than an average amount of violence tended to throw
things at their husbands. Boys who grew up watching violent TV shows were
more likely to be be violent with their wives.
Researchers concluded in Developmental Psychology that, „Every violent TV
show increases a little-bit the likelihood of a child growing up to behave
more aggressively.“
We’ll look at more of the research in a moment.
Canada was one of the first countries to extensively research this issue.
The results of their studies prompted some of their engineers to devise the
„V-Chip.“ As you may know, the V-Chip allows parents to lock out TV
programming they consider objectionable to their children.
Although the concern in Canada was primarily violence (hence the V-chip),
in the United States there is also great concern about sexual
content—probably more than in most other industrialized societies. Hence,
the V-chip can be programmed to screen out both violence and sex.
The issue of sex, which has resulted in quite different research findings,
is discussed here and here, so in this article we’ll focus on the issue of
film and TV violence.
| |
|Because ours is a puritanically-based society|
|and we have problems with depictions of sex, |
|we tend to eroticize violence. |
|For many people this creates an unfortunate, |
|often even unconscious, link between sex and |
|violence. |
| from „Sex Research, Censorship, and the |
|Law“ |
| |
Cause-Effect Proof
Studies done in both the United States and Canada have shown a positive
relationship between early exposure to TV violence and physical
aggressiveness in later life.
Even so, a clear cause-effect relationship is complicated by the fact that
children are typically exposed to many stimuli as they grow up, many of
which could play a role in later behavior.
For example, during a child’s life we can’t discount the role of such
things as violent video games, the social values of parents and peers, or
general living conditions.
If you eat something that you have not tried before and immediately get
sick, you will probably assume there’s a direct relationship between the
two events.
And if at some later date you forget about your first experience and eat
the same thing again, and immediately get sick again, you can be fairly
sure that whatever you ate makes you sick.
No rocket science here, just clear cause and effect.
Unfortunately, the cause and effect in many other areas of life are not as
readily apparent.
A few decades ago you would see doctors in TV commercials endorsing a
particular brand of cigarettes. And many medical doctors smoked.
Not today.
Today the evidence is clear: smoking is the number one cause of preventable
heath problems and premature death in the United States. Although for years
the cigarette manufacturers suppressed evidence that linked smoking to
health problems, eventually the cause-effect relationship became obvious to