How Media Violence Related to Aggressive and Violent Behavior

Children tend to act more violently due over exposure to violent media. Interestingly, studies done by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron and others show that being aggressive as a youth did not speculate that they would watch more television. This suggests that violent media portrayal is a cause rather than a consequence of aggressive people. However, later research by psychologists Douglas Gentile and Brad Bushman, suggested that media violence is just one of the many causes that inhibit rational thought. [http://www.apa.org/research/action/protect.aspx]

For years now, researches have been studying the correlation between violent media and the aggression in children. Undoubtedly the conclusion is that violent media does indeed increase the aggressive nature in kids.

Many people still have several questions they want answered, such as, is media violence actually affecting children or are children already prone to violence drawn to media violence? Some experts have shown short and long-term negative effects occur in children from watching violent media; however another group of experts have shown that media violence is only one of many risk factors leading to aggression developed in children. These two groups need to continue more research and go beyond that to find true solutions. Nevertheless, no sources were found to say that media violence has no influence on the increase in modern culture’s violent actions. The key to discovering the true correlation between violence in children and media violence is to continue research until a solution is

According to Jeff Grabmeier, "‘Broad Consensus’ that Violent Media Increase Child Aggression," news.osu.edu, Oct. 6, 2014, 90% of pediatricians and 67% of parents agreed or strongly agreed that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior among children.

violating, damaging, or abusing. Violence on TV has been steadily increasing for the past few years. It’s

In Brad Bushman’s and Rowell Huesmann’s Article Short-term and Long-term Effects of Violent Media on Aggression in Children and Adults from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine journal, they believe the violent media in video games, tv shows, music, and movies, are affecting behavior in children and adults. Bushman and Huesmann believe that all the violence that has made a more popular appearance in today’s culture is causing for adults and children to be more prone to aggression. They hypothesized that the long-term effects would be greater in children and the short-term effects would be greater in adults, and discovered their hypotheses to be correct. Other articles, such as Beth Stein’s If Violent Video Games are Harmless Fun,

This could be opening the doors to a plethora of other cases and assumptions that can lead to our youth potentially becoming killers. Research was conducted on the exposure of television violence and its effects on kids, organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that there is a cause and effect relationship amongst those exposed. However, such studies does not demonstrate that media violence causes aggressive behavior, only that the two phenomena exist together (207). This finding was used to make the assumption that it would likely be the case with video games.

Living in a world full of crime and violence, people begin to wonder what the cause of the violence is and how it can then be prevented. Unfortunately, there is not a single root cause that can be found when people attempt to decipher why children are deciding to bring guns to school and murder their peers. Some may believe that it was influenced by being exposed to a hostile family, violent films, or gory video games. Although sometimes this might be the case, a lot of the time it is not as black and white, making this topic very difficult to analyze and understand. Both Jonathan L. Freedman in “Villain or Scapegoat? Media Violence and Aggression” and L Rowell Huesmann and Laramie D. Taylor in “The Role of Media Violence in Violent

The results of the study were that it was possible to predict aggression based on media exposure and that it significantly increased aggression. The study suggests that the more educational media exposure there is to children the more aggression is shown.

Academic studies prove what most Americans theorize to be true, providing documented consensus that exposure to media violence is linked to actual violent behavior, “on par with the correlation of exposure to secondhand smoke and the risk of lung cancer.” In a meta-analysis of 217 studies, psychologists

Children and teens who watch violent TV shows and movies will display more aggression and violent behavior.

The media in today’s society is very influential on children. There are many things that children at a very young age are learning, for example violence. Many children learn violent behavior and they become violent and aggressive children because they are exposed to so much mature content. Many parents are not aware of what their children are watching, and without knowing it, their children are raised by the media. Many television shows contain a lot of violence, for example kids fighting each other, kids bullying other kids and kids yelling and disrespecting their parents. Unfortunately, at a very young age children are learning to be aggressive and violent because they are spending more time watching television than spending it

The purposes of this project were to examine TV violence and analyze how TV violence may influence children’s aggression. In Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment, results showed that children who observed aggressive models toward the Bobo doll were more likely to imitate that behavior than children who observed non-aggressive models. Male children were more likely to imitate the model if they were the same-sex compared to female children. Male children displayed more physical aggression compared to female children. The females were likely to show physical aggression when they witnessed an opposite-sex model perform in an aggressive model group. However, females were likely to show verbal aggression when they witnessed a same-sex model perform in

          Due to violence on television, children become less sensitive to that pain and suffering of others or to become more aggressive to others. It also makes children more fearful to the world around them. (Abelard 1) Viewing habits of children observed for many decades deduced that violence on TV is associated with aggressive behavior, more than poverty, race, or parental behavior. It also reported that a TV show contains about 20 acts of violence an hour.

As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the