Effects Of Media Violence on Aggression

My coursework project is a study on how media violence affects a persons aggression levels. I carried out a study into how a person's film preference may reflect on how aggressive they are. Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1963) carried out a study of observational learning in which young children were shown adults interacting with a character called "Bobo Doll". In one film, the adults attacked Bobo, and in another they did not. Children were shown one of the two films.

The adults attacked Bobo in a distinctive manner - they used a hammer in some cases, and in others threw the doll in the air and shouted "Pow, Boom".

As a result, they could be sure that if the behaviour was repeated, it was learned rather than spontaneous. Later, Bandura (1965) carried out the same experiment, but showed the adult who behaved aggressively either being punished or rewarded. Those children, who had seen the adult rewarded, and those who had seen the adult neither rewarded nor punished, behaved more aggressively than those who had seen the adult punished.

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It could be that the children who had seen the adult punished simply couldn't remember how the adult had behaved. However, when Bandura rewarded all of the children for imitating the behaviour of the adult, this was shown not to be the case. Thus, all three groups of children had comparable levels of observational learning, but those who had seen the adult punished did not replicate the behaviour.

Evaluation and Criticism of Bandura's Social Learning Theory Studies who show children imitate violent behaviour seen on televisio are consistent with social learning theory.

 Anderson and Gill carried out two experiments. The first showed that young men who are usually aggressive may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of repeated exposure to violent games. It was found that students who reported playing more violent video games in school engaged in more aggressive behaviour.

The second showed that everybody can become temporarily more aggressive after even a brief exposure to violent games. In the first study 227 college students were asked to rate their level of aggression. In the second study, 210 college students played either a violent (Manhunt) or non-violent video game (Myst). A short time later, the students who played the violent video were found to be more aggressive than those who had played the non-violent game. This was measured experimentally by recording the length of time the volunteers "punished" an opponent.

I have replicated Eron et al's study in which young children were measured on their aggression levels. Abstract The main aim of my experiment was to see if the participant's aggression levels (as shown by the questionnaire) it would correlate with their film preference. If the participant scored high on their questionnaire, it could be assumed that their film preference would fall in the violent section. An opportunistic sample was taken, as a student walked past us in the college corridor they were asked if they would like to participate in out study, approximately 20 people were asked with 2 students declining. Closed questionnaire method was used.

The participants of the study were all Havering Sixth Form students aged 16-19. To resolve gender generalisation problems, 9 boys and 9 girls were used. I found that a person's aggression level does actually reflect whether they would enjoy a violent film more, perhaps due to a hostile nature. It could therefore be concluded that the average student aged 16-19, if of an aggressive nature; they would prefer to watch a violent/aggressive film.

Aims/Hypothesis formulation Eron (1982), Huesman, and Lagerspit measured the amount of television watched as well as levels of aggression in young children. The same individuals were measured again some years later. They found that amount of television watched correlated to the amount of convictions that the individuals had received by the age of 30. This could suggest that television caused aggression. However, it could also suggest that certain income groups with limited opportunities for recreation were also more likely to be involved in crime. There was also evidence which suggested that children who were aggressive tended to watch violent programs later on in life. This suggests that aggressive children will watch violent programs, rather than violent programs make individuals aggressive.

Method Design The method I am going to used is a closed questionnaire. I will be using two questionnaires in order to get my results. One advantage of a closed questionnaire is that a lot of data can be collected in a short time, it gives quantative data which can be difficult to analyse thus taking a long time to do so. I am going to use a correlation design as this allows for a direct link between both questionnaires. My co-variables will be levels of aggression and violent film preference.