MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY: Media Influences on Social Behaviour proposed that children may learn problem-solving scripts through observation and that aggressive scripts may be learned through observation of violent scenes. If the children find themselves in a similar situation in real life they may recall aspects of the violent script as a solution. One strength of the research into cognitive priming is that there is further empirical support provided by Josephson (1987). He got junior ice-hockey players who were deliberately frustrated and then shown a violent or non-violent film where an actor held a walkie-talkie. In a subsequent hockey game, the boys behaved more aggressively if they had seen the violent film and the referee in their game was holding a walkie-talkie, which acted as a cue. This suggests that there is further empirical support for the idea of aggression being sparked off by media influences. Another example of cognitive priming include violent song lyrics, which increase aggressive thoughts Anderson et al (2003) study.
However different age groups do not perceive song lyrics in the same way. Pre-existing tendencies. Anderson, et al (2003) said the children at greatest risk of influence from anti-social media are those who have an aggressive predisposition (temperament). One of the most thorough studies of physical and verbal aggression demonstrating aggressive predisposition was a field study was reported by Leyens et al (1975):
The participants were juvenile delinquents at a school in Belgium. Boys in two dormitories (one high in aggression, the other low in aggression), watched violent films only, whereas boys in the other two dormitories watched only non violent films. There was an increased level of physical aggression among the boys who saw the violent films, but not among those who saw the nonviolent films. Verbal aggression increased among boys in the aggressive dormitory who saw violent films, but decreased among boys from non-aggressive dormitories.
Evaluations: What ethical issues are there? Biological explanations: Possibly boys with high testosterone levels could be more aggressive, which is why they were in a school for delinquents.
A further study by Parke et al (1977) aimed to show increased aggression as a result of exposure to violent TV programmes. Sample: young offenders living in different cottages in an institution; Design: field experiment Method: Normal TV service was discontinued. Participants in one cottage saw only programmes with violent content (e.g. ‘Batman’, ‘The Untouchables’). Participants in another cottage saw only non-violent programmes . Institution staff observed and recorded behaviour of the Participants. Findings: an increase in aggression was observed in the ‘violent programmes’ group. Conclusion: exposure to violent programmes led to increased aggression levels. There is the possibility that some of the participants had an aggressive nature. AAFoster
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