Offers a look at a study that reveals that television violence
makes children more aggressive and these more aggressive kids turn to
watching more television to justify their own behavior. Study according
to Leonard Eron; Details of the study; Conclusion that what one learns
about life from the television screen seems to be transmitted even to the
next generation.
By
PT Staff, published on July 01, 1992
VIDEO EFFECTS
The stream of murderous blood-letting that courses through the
television tube leaves no viewer unaffected. But a study that gives a
whole new meaning to "vicious cycle" reveals that those most badly
scarred may be the second generation of viewers.
TV violence makes children more aggressive, and these more
aggressive kids turn to watching more TV to justify their own behavior,
reports Leonard Eron, Ph.D., who chairs the American Psychological
Association's Commission on Violence and Youth. "Television violence
affects youngsters of all ages, both genders, and all socioeconomic
levels and levels of intelligence," he found in a study that spans 32
years. And the effect is not limited to those who are already disposed to
being aggressive.
In 1960, Eron was looking at 875 boys and girls in the third grade
of a semi-rural New York State grammar school to see how different
childrearing practices affect behavior. But he made an unexpected
finding: For the boys, there was a direct relationship between the
violence of the programs they selected and their aggressiveness in
school.
Ten years later, when Eron looked again, the link between Tv
violence seen at age eight and later violent behavior was even stronger.
Those boys who had low levels of aggressive behavior during the original
study but who watched large amounts of violent television were now
significantly more aggressive--even more so than those boys who were
originally highly aggressive but did not watch violent programs.
When the original subjects were 30 years old and had children of
their own Eron looked at them yet again, along with arrest records. Those
who had more frequently viewed violent programs as boys had gone on to be
convicted of more serious crimes and were more aggressive under the
influence of alcohol. Most striking, they more often used violence to
punish their children--and the children, in turn, more often preferred
violent programming.
Concludes Eron: "What one learns about life from the television
screen seems to be transmitted even to the next generation." The steady
viewing of violent programs by the men as youngsters taught them ways of
solving interpersonal problems that stuck over the years.
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