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Boys
and Girls Affected by TV Violence
Excerpt
By Ed Edelson,
HealthScoutNews
When it comes to the link between watching
violent television in childhood and aggressive behavior in adulthood,
girls, it seems, will be boys.
A new study in the March issue
of Developmental Psychology found women who watched a lot
of violence on TV as children were four times more likely to have
shoved, punched, beaten or choked someone who made them angry,
compared to other women.
The study, by University of Michigan
psychologists, also found men who watched a lot of violent television
as kids were more likely to have been convicted of a crime, responded
to an insult by shoving, and had a moving traffic violation.
However, the connection between
aggressive men who watched a lot of TV violence as boys has been
repeatedly established by a multitude of studies, says John P.
Murray, a psychologist who has participated in many of those studies
for the past three decades.
It's the findings about girls that
makes this new report interesting, says Murray, a professor of
developmental psychology at Kansas State University.
"They [the Michigan researchers]
find the effects for both boys and girls, which has not been done
before," Murray says. "The reason probably is that this
is an entirely different era, and girls are more like boys now."
The new study was based on a follow-up
of a 1977 study of 557 children, aged 6 to 10, in the Chicago
area. The children reported which violent TV shows they watched
most, whether they identified with the aggressive characters,
and whether they thought the violent scenes were realistic.
The Michigan researchers tracked
down 329 of the boys and girls, now in their 20s, and asked them,
their friends and their spouses about their tendency for aggressive
behavior. State records were also searched to find criminal records
and traffic violations.
"For both boys and girls,
habitual early exposure to TV violence is predictive of more aggression
by them later in life, independent of their own initial childhood
aggression," study author L. Rowell Huesmann says in a statement.
The programs that were most likely
to induce violent behavior were ones in which the children identified
with the violent person; violent behavior was rewarded; and the
violence was life-like, the researchers say.
Except for the insights on women,
this is the sort of report that has been done since 1972, on roughly
a 10-year cycle, Murray says. He worked on a 1972 U.S. Surgeon
General's report on children and TV violence. It was followed
by a 1982 National Institute of Mental Health report, and a 1992
American Psychology Association report by a task force that included
Murray.
"The message is clear,"
he says. "Viewing violence is causally related to aggressive
behavior in both boys and girls."
The new report is also impressive
because it was led by Huesmann and Leonard D. Eron, who are "the
masters of this kind of research," Murray says.
The potential threat to children
has grown, Murray adds, because "television is more violent
and more graphic now." Watching such scenes not only encourages
violent behavior by also induces fear and makes children less
sensitive to the effects of violence, he says.
The Michigan researchers recommend
that parents watch television with their children and monitor
their viewing habits. The V-chip system for controlling what is
seen is useful, they say, but they would like to see a rating
system based on program contents.
"I would tell parents to be
very cautious about what their children watch," Murray says.
More information
For more on children and television
violence, visit the America
Psychological Association or the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Reference
Source 101
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