Tv Violence Essay Research Paper Violence on — страница 2

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shaved his head to look like the main character and shot his parents. This definitely proves that children are not the only ones who try to imitate violent behaviors. Many studies have been conducted to determine if in fact people imitate or model aggressive behaviors. For example, one of the most well know studies of modeling aggressive behavior and to determine if children imitate violent acts observed on television is an experiment done by Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross and Sheila A. Ross. To test their hypothesis, the subjects were divided into three experimental groups and one control group. One group observed real-life aggression, the second group observed the same models but on film and the third group watched an aggressive cartoon. The groups were also subdivided into male

and female subjects so that half the subjects were exposed to the same sex models, while the other half viewed model of the opposite sex. After the subjects were exposed to aggression, they were tested for the amount of imitation and non-imitation aggression. As a result, the boys were significantly more aggressive than the girls. Gender was also positively correlated with imitative aggression and the subjects tended to imitate the same sex models more than the opposite sex. In addition, Bandura, Ross and Ross had predicted that the subjects who saw aggressive behavior being displayed would consequently be more aggressive when frustrated than the subjects who were as frustrated but had not been exposed to prior aggression. The experiment confirmed their prediction. One of the

finding of the experiment was that the sex of the child and the sex of the model provides support that the models influence is somewhat determined by the gender of the model. Also, the experiment has strong evidence that children who are exposed to film aggression will have their aggressive behavior increased. The findings also show that children tend to model their aggression after social behavior particularly that which is seen on television. Their conclusion can also imply that children who observe aggression in real-life situations, will tend to be more aggressive than children who live in an aggressive environment. Another example of modeling aggressive behavior in television is the study as reported in The Impact of Television (1986) where Tannis Williams and her associates

at the University of British Columbia studied a rural community which was recently introduced to television compared to two rural communities that already had television and high levels of aggression. The observation was conducted after the first community had television for two years. The subjects were forty-five first and second grade students. After the two year period, William and her associates had concluded that the aggression among children in the first community increased by 160 percent whereas in the other communities the aggression levels remained the same. One can infer from this study that television has an impact on children reenacting the violent behaviors. Moreover, Brandan S. Centerwall in Television and Violent Crime studies the crime rates in the United States,

Canada and South Africa between the years 1945 to 1974 when South Africa did not have television whereas both the United States and Canada had television. His results concluded that the “homicide rate in the United States increased by 93 percent [and] in Canada the homicide rate increased 92 percent. In South Africa the homicide rate declined by 7 percent.” In fact, in 1982 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMB) did a study to conclude if violence on television increases hostile behaviors in people. They also determined that people will imitate the violent acts seen in the media. In addition, the NIMB reported “that television violence causes aggression, and that a distorted world presented on television causes heavy viewers to see the real world as more hostile and

scary than it really is.” What gender is more likely to imitate aggressive behavior? It is generally agreed that boys are more naturally aggressive than girls. In fact, Bandura, Ross and Ross have concluded that boys are more likely to imitate violent behavior and their aggression comes forth more when it is stimulated by outside models. “The tendency for boys to be more aggressive than girls is the largest and most consistent gender difference in behavior, and is quite clear by the age or 2 or 2 1/2.” Moreover, the effects of television watching on children’s aggressiveness was studied by Leonard Eron, of the University of Illinois. He concluded that boys were significantly more aggressive than girls after watching violent shows. Ten years later, he conducted a study on