Associations Between Reading Aggression in Books and Aggressive Behavior in Adolescents Critical Summary Despite the continued popularity of many book series, especially in the adolescent, or “Young Adult” genre, books have received less research attention overall than other traditional forms of media, such as TV or videogames. Controversy over the content of books has lead to numerous school districts banning books within the curriculum and libraries. The research presented in the article looks to determine whether reading physical and relational aggression within books can be associated with aggressive behavior in adolescents.
To understand the research in its entirety, it’s important to note the two types of aggression that were
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In the short term, the exposure to violence in the media may influence aggressive behavior by lowering the mood or activating aggression-related cognitive processes. Therefore, the individual is primed to behave aggressively in the short-term, and in the long-term this exposure may strengthen these aggressive cognitive processes, and therefore lead to a more aggressive personality overall. This theory would suggest that reading aggressive material would predict aggressive behavior. However, the Downward Spiral Model (Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Anderson, 2003) describes a bidirectional effect of media aggression. This implies that aggressive individuals may seek out violent media and thus reinforce and intensify such tendencies. Since so many teenagers do read, the specific goals of the research were to shine more light on whether reading aggressive material is associated with coexisting aggressive behavior in adolescents. The researchers hypothesized that there would be a positive correlation for both physical and relational aggression, and they emphasized the idea that the type of aggression may be different, giving that reading, opposed to simply viewing, requires a different level of cognitive attention. This being so, the different level may influence the development of aggression by increasing the likelihood of a long-term relationship between reading aggressive behavior in books and aggressive behavior in general. The aforementioned theories would suggest
Gentile, Douglas A. et al (2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance. Retrieved October 4, 2010, from pdfcast.org: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/the-effects-of-violent-video-game-habits-on-adolescent-hostility-aggressive-behaviors-and-school-performance
In Brad Bushman’s and Rowell Huesmann’s Article Short-term and Long-term Effects of Violent Media on Aggression in Children and Adults from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine journal, they believe the violent media in video games, tv shows, music, and movies, are affecting behavior in children and adults. Bushman and Huesmann believe that all the violence that has made a more popular appearance in today’s culture is causing for adults and children to be more prone to aggression. They hypothesized that the long-term effects would be greater in children and the short-term effects would be greater in adults, and discovered their hypotheses to be correct. Other articles, such as Beth Stein’s If Violent Video Games are Harmless Fun,
The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of a recent study examining the effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior in young children. Let me first provide a brief summary of the study. (a) The hypothesis is that violent video games cause aggression in young children. (b) The target population is young children. (c) The samples are young school age children and the sample sizes are sixty children separated into two groups with 30 children being in the experimental group and 30 children being in the control group. (d) The independent variable is violent video games and the dependent variable is aggression. (e) The result of the experiment were
Many studies show that children are more prone to violence due to a child’s undeveloped brain. “Children who are regularly exposed to more violent media have an increased probability of behaving more aggressively in real life (Anderson).” Furthermore, children nowadays are exposed to excessive amounts of violence in media, increasing their risks of violence when older (Anderson). Anderson explains, children are likely to become “emotionally desensitized to the violence” being portrayed. Negative actions may happen without concern or acknowledgement that something is wrong (Anderson). According to Anderson, young children will be meaner and more aggressive. The more contact with media violence a child gets, the more likely they are to be aggressive, as he or she gets older
Aggression is a natural part of human behavior, and can even be adaptive in certain situations. However, when aggression manifests itself in violent behaviors, it becomes problematic. Patterns of aggression change throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, and these changes usually differ between males and females (Loeber, 1997). Physical aggression is typically greatest early in life and decreases during adolescence, whereas more serious violence tends to increase with age, particularly during adolescence (Loeber, 1997). Despite the changes that occur in aggressive tendencies throughout childhood and adolescence, aggression is seen as a very stable trait, almost as stable as
In today’s society there has been an ongoing debate regarding the effects of violent video games and the development of today’s youth. Many people believe that the violence in video games promotes aggression. According to Doctor Brad Bushman’s article, "Do Violent Video Games Increase Aggression?" he claims that violent video games leads to aggression because it is interactive process that teaches and rewards violent behavior. Yet others believe that this not the case. Gregg Toppo of the Scientific American, writes in his article, “Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior?” that video games are not a significant issue because teenagers know how differentiate between reality and fantasy. Because of the controversy surrounding this topic, I decided to research the question, “Does exposure to violent video games cause aggressive behavior among teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18?” Initially before performing any extensive research on this subject, I hypothesized that violent video games do cause aggressive behavior. I then proceeded to study different scholarly works that both supported and opposed my hypothesis. What I learned from those works eventually gave me a more complete understanding of the topic and allowed me to take a more educated stance.
There are indicators that links playing violent video games to increasing aggression in young people. Teenagers who are expose to violent games are more supposable to increase the likelihood of experiencing aggressive thoughts, in which turns into the likelihood of engaging in physical aggression against another person. Furthermore, violent video games produce an emotional desensitization to aggression and violence to the youth (Anderson). Based on the observation teenagers are exposed to when they are playing violent video games, they will reenact almost immediately in real life if the situational contact is sufficiently similar to the ones in the games. Therefore, consumption of violent video games produces negative behaviors that are controlled by negative
The results of the study were that it was possible to predict aggression based on media exposure and that it significantly increased aggression. The study suggests that the more educational media exposure there is to children the more aggression is shown.
Redirected aggression does not simply derive from irrationality or human nastiness, but along with retaliation and revenge is entrenched in the very fabric of the natural world,
These experimental studies find a strong relationship between playing violent video games and increasing in aggressive thoughts. Also, these studies revealed significant effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, cognition, and on prosocial behavior. This article provides evidence in my argument on how significant exposure to violent video game tends to increase the risk of developing aggressive behavior in real life. Furthermore, children exposed to violent material via the media potentially develop increased attitudes of hostility and show decreased emotional response to violent acts against others.
This could be opening the doors to a plethora of other cases and assumptions that can lead to our youth potentially becoming killers. Research was conducted on the exposure of television violence and its effects on kids, organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that there is a cause and effect relationship amongst those exposed. However, such studies does not demonstrate that media violence causes aggressive behavior, only that the two phenomena exist together (207). This finding was used to make the assumption that it would likely be the case with video games.
For years now, researches have been studying the correlation between violent media and the aggression in children. Undoubtedly the conclusion is that violent media does indeed increase the aggressive nature in kids.
The general aggression model (GAM) is the most contemporary theory of aggression as of 2015. The GAM, as discussed by Anderson and Bushman (2002), focuses on addressing and discovering the biological, environmental, psychological, and social factors that influence aggression. This aggression model “accounts for both short- and long-term effects of an extensive range of variables of aggression (Warburton & Anderson, 2015, p.375)” due to its biosocial-cognitive approach. Benjamin (2016) describes the opportunity for appraisal presented within this theory. GAM articulates the influences on a person’s immediate appraisal of the situation. “This immediate appraisal occurs automatically, and includes an interpretation of the situation and an
It would be best to test college age students, as they know right from wrong. Researchers, pediatricians and parents have all found that exposure to media violence can increase aggression (Bushman, Gollwitzer, & Cruz. (2014). Bushman, Gollwitzer, and Cruz stated most parents and educators “learn about violent media effects from new reports rather than scientific reports” (p. 7). It is because of this that parents so blindly believe that media so harshly youth. This study will help to make the effects of media violence more concrete and apparent instead of
As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the