TV violence: Cognitions and Beliefs

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TV violence Cognitions and Beliefs

• 1. Developmental considerations children do not
  process TV content the same as adults, and may
  take away different messages.
• In children, several relevant cognitive abilities
  are deficient, or less well-developed, which
  may increase their susceptibility to violent
  content.

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• These abilities include
• - ability to understand complex adult motives,
  especially changing motives
• - ability to connect early events (e.g., crime,
  violence) with later outcomes (punishment)
• - ability to infer logical but unseen events
• - less world knowledge to apply to their
  interpretation of TV characters and events.

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• Collinss changer-nonchanger study (1970s)
• Showed children a crime drama, in which a key
  character was initially presented as a good guy
  in fact, he was eventually revealed to have
  criminal motives and attempted to harm others.
• Children younger than about 8-9 did not catch on
  to this change, and misinterpreted that
  characters behavior throughout the program as
  good.

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• In another Collins study, a TV crime drama was
  edited to include only the main plot, which
  depicted criminal motives, criminal behavior
  (murder), and eventual capture and punishment
• For some children, a series of commercials were
  inserted after the crime was committed (a
  naturalistic interruption)
• For others, no commercial interruption occurred
  (only the main plot start to finish)

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• After the program, children were given a measure
  of hypothetical intended aggression (What would
  you do).
• Those in the crime // ad // punishment
  condition scored higher on the aggression measure
  than those who saw
• crime // punishment uninterrupted.
• Suggests that they did not connect the crime with
  its eventual consequences, undermining the social
  learning message.

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• 2. Priming of hostile thoughts via media
  violence.
• Reflects one mechanism of media violence viewer
  aggression link
• Media violence primes hostile thoughts, which
  serve as basis for expectations about social
  situations (similar to Berkowitz cue process)
• Behavior is influenced by these primed thoughts.

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• Craig Anderson studies (1990s-2000s)
• College Ss play violent or NV videogames, then
  are presented with hypothetical scenarios
• E.G. Jack is driving to work, and stops for a
  yellow light the car behind rear ends him, doing
  a lot of damage Jack gets out of his car What
  will Jack do (say, think)?
• Provide 20 things he might do/say/think

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• Results those who played violent VG gave more
  hostile and aggressive responses
• E.G. Jack these are actual responses
• Kicks the other car,
• Says Shit and call him an idiot,
• Kicks the other guys butt,
• Starts throwing punches,
• Kicks out his window,
• Shoots or stabs the other driver.

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• Another e.g. Janet saved up for a special
  vacationShe invites her friends Shannon to
  goShannon wants to spend money on a stereo
  instead Janet
• Sleeps with Shannons boyfriend,
• Says fuck you bitch,
• Says how dumb the stereo is,
• Gets into a fist fight with Shannon,
• Says fine just sit in your hole and rot!
• Drives her car into Shannons house.

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• Anderson has shown this effect in many studies,
  for males and females.
• Primed aggressive thoughts partly determine what
  we expect of others, which may lead to
  misattribution of others motives and behavior,
  as well as our own choices of behavioral
  responses to conflict situations.

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• 3. Cultivation of social reality Gerbner
• Pervasive themes in mass media shape viewers
  perceptions about those themes in real life.
• Gerbner suggests that frequent/heavy viewing
  leads to a Mean World Syndrome, i.e., heavy
  viewers of TV believe that the real world is a
  mean and scary place, because they see so much
  crime and violence on TV.

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• Basic cultivation research design
• Measure viewing level of S sample, divide into
  light and heavy viewers
• Ss complete measures of their perceptions of
  themes in the real social world (mainly crime,
  violence studied to date)
• Compare light and heavy viewers perceptions.

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• Sample cultivation measure items
• Do you think that 3 of US pop is involved in law
  enforcement, or is it 10?
• Is the of persons involved in violent crime 1,
  or closer to 10?
• Are you afraid to walk in your neighborhood at
  night? Y/N
• On a typical day, how often does a police officer
  use his/her weapon? Less than once per day, or 5
  times per day?

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• Gerbner finds that heavy viewers give more TV
  answers () than light viewers.
• Suggests that heavy viewers beliefs about the
  real world are shaped (cultivated) by the massive
  hours spent with TV.
• They spend less time in the real world, and more
  time in the TV world.
• Knowledge/information from real world vs. TV
  cannot always be separated in our memory sources
  often forgotten.

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• Subprocesses of cultivation
• Mainstreaming heavy viewers beliefs are more
  alike, while light viewers beliefs are more
  diverse
• e.g., more educated persons not as paranoid about
  crime violence as less educated persons heavy
  viewing reduces this difference
• Heavy TV viewing homogenizes social beliefs in
  a TV direction.

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Hypothetical example of mainstreaming
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• 2. Resonance an amplified cultivation effect
  when viewers own circumstances match those seen
  on TV
• E.g., women tend to be more fearful of crime than
  men, and women on TV are often victimized
• Heavy-viewing women are especially fearful of
  chances of victimization, moreso than
  light-viewing women.

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Hypothetical example of resonance
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• Gerbners results are questioned by critics and
  some failures to replicate
• Results are correlational, not causal. It could
  be that heavy viewing causes mean world syndrome,
  but maybe paranoid persons are drawn to crime
  dramas and other violent programs, or some other
  personality trait leads to both violence viewing
  and MWS.

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• But, Bryant Zillmann (1980s) did an
  experimental study, in which persons were
  assigned to watch several specific taped programs
  across a 3 week period
• One group watched crime dramas which depicted
  crime being punished
• A second group watched tapes where crime won or
  there was less clear punishment
• The latter group increased in anxiety and fear of
  victimization more than the first group.

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• 2. Questionable identification of heavy vs. light
  viewers Gerbner excludes nonviewers, and lumps
  extreme viewers (gt8 hrs/day) into heavy viewers
  (4-8/day).
• Hirsch 1980s reanalysis included nonviewers and
  extreme viewers, and found nonlinear trend in
  MWS nonviewers more paranoid than light, heavy
  viewers more than extreme viewers

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Hirschs results MWS
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• While this seems to contradict the cultivation
  hypothesis, it must be qualified, in that
• There are very few nonviewers and extreme viewers
  in the adult population, and may not represent
  many persons
• The cultivation effect still holds for light and
  heavy viewers, which represent most of the
  population.

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• 3. Use of total viewing level, rather than
  specific viewing of crime dramas to form
  heavy-light groups.
• Hawkins Pingree (1980s) studied 1200 Australian
  jr high schoolers, and found cultivation effect
  as a function of how much American crime dramas
  they watched, but not total amount of TV. Is a
  logical refinement of Gerbners original theory.

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• 4. Failures to replicate cultivation effect
• Wober (1980s) did not find cultivation effects in
  a large British sample
• But, British TV is much less violent than US TV,
  so heavy viewer in UK is exposed to less violence
  than a light viewer in US.
• Recall that Belsen found the correlation between
  TV violence exposure and delinquent teen
  behavior, so violent TV clearly has effects in UK.

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• 5. Issue of societal vs. personal judgments
• Some studies (Tyler, 1980s) found a greater
  cultivation effect for beliefs about societal
  violence, but not personal victimization.
• Possibly reflects a just world belief, or
  optimistic bias, e.g., that nothing bad will
  happen to me because I am a good person (even if
  the world in general is a mean and scary place).

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• 6. Gerbner was not precise about exactly what
  mechanisms produced cultivation
• Shrum (1990s) found that heavy viewers gave TV
  answers to cultivation questions more quickly
  than light viewers
• Suggests more accessibility of crime violence
  info (similar to Berkowitzs and Andersons
  priming or cueing process) in heavy viewers, thus
  more available to affect judgments.

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• Other cultivation topic
• Pingree found cultivation effects in soap opera
  viewers
• Heavy viewers (vs. light) had perceptions that
  people are less trustworthy, honest, and often
  had ulterior motives (soap opera themes)
• Effect not seen in extreme viewers, i.e., the
  super fans of soaps, who attend conventions,
  read fan mags, etc.