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No Clear Link Between TV Violence and Aggression Essay

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No Clear Link Between Television Violence and Aggression

There is a great deal of speculation on the role of television violence in

childhood aggression. Research demonstrates there may be other intervening

variables causing aggression. These variables include IQ, social class, parental

punishment, parental aggression, hereditary, environmental, and modeling. With

all of these factors to taken into consideration it is difficult to determine a

causal relationship between television violence and aggression. It is my

hypothesis this relationship is bi-directional - violent television

causes aggressive behavior and aggressive people tend to watch more violent

television.

Over the years there has been …show more content…

Subjects in the aggression condition reproduced a good deal of physical and

verbal aggressive behavior resembling that of the models. The data clearly

confirmed the prediction that exposure of subjects to aggressive models

increases the probability of aggressive behavior (Bandura et al. 1961). Another

study sought to determine the extent to which film- mediated aggressive models

may serve as an important source of imitative behavior. Children were divided

and then exposed to four different aggression models. A real-life aggression

condition, a human film- aggression condition, a cartoon film-aggression

condition, and a control group. The results showed that exposure to humans on

film portraying aggression was the most influential in eliciting aggressive

behavior. Subjects in this condition, in comparison to the control subjects,

exhibited more aggression and more imitative aggression. Subjects who viewed

the aggressive human and cartoon models on film exhibited almost twice as much

aggression as subjects in the control group. These results provide strong

evidence that exposure to filmed aggression heightens aggressive reactions in

children (Bandura et al. 1963a). These results add to the conclusion that

viewing violent television produces aggressive behavior.

But,

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