Theory in the Study of Media Violence: The General

CHAPTER 5
Media Violence and
Children
Theory in the Study of Media Violence:
A COMPLETE GUIDE FOR PARENTS AND
The General Aggression Model
PROFESSIONALS
Nicholas L. Carnagey and Craig A. Anderson
Aggression Model
Edited by Douglas A. Gentile
Please note that this electronic reprint is provided as a courtesy. Please do not
post or distribute this reprint in any fashion that may violate the copyright of
the original publisher or the authors. Thank you for your interest in this work.
Advances in Applied Developmental Psychology
Irving E. Sigel, Series Editor
Praeger
2003
Westport,
London
Connecticut
A large portion of this book reviews empirical research on the effects of media
violence. Researchers have used many tools in this effort to understand the
media violence phenomenon. Creative lab designs and advancement of technology have allowed laboratory researchers to manipulate exposure to media
violence and view the short-term results of brief exposure. Cross-sectional and
longitudinal studies have allowed the research world to document the "real
life" consequences of repeated exposure to large amounts of filmed violence.
Although these empirical research tools have resulted in great advances in
understanding by media violence researchers, it is important to remember that
the theories guiding and being revised by such research are as important to the
scientific enterprise as the data they generate.
Theory is typically defined as an organized set of hypotheses that allow a
scientist to understand, explain, and predict a wide variety of phenomena
(Shaw & Costanzo, 1982). Theory serves the scientist in a number of ways.
First, theory organizes a researcher's thoughts, hypotheses, and existing
knowledge. Such organization has many benefits, such as making the researcher more efficient in developing a strategic plan of analysis.
Not only does a good theory help organize concepts, but it also indirectly
organizes researchers and their products. Think of knowledge as a tower of
building blocks, with each block constituting a small piece of empirical knowledge. The more blocks there are, the more is known about a subject. Without
theory to guide them, researchers are forced to individually build their own
knowledge about a subject, starting from the ground up. However, with one
theory guiding several researchers, they are empowered to build on each
other's blocks, with theory establishing the foundation and basic structure for
Theory in the Study of Media Violence: The General Aggression Model
References
Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36, 715-729.
Anderson, C.A. (1997). Effects of violent movies and trait irritability on hostile feelings and aggressive thoughts. Aggressive Behavior, 23, 161-178.
Anderson, C.A., Anderson, K.B., & Deuser, W.E. (1996). Examining an affective aggression framework: Weapon and temperature effects on aggressive thoughts,
affect, and attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 366-376.
Anderson, C.A., & Arnoult, L.H. (1985). Attributional models of depression, loneliness, and shyness. In J. Harvey & G. Weary (Eds.), Attribution: Basic Issues and
Applications (pp. 235-279). New York: Academic Press.
Anderson, C.A., Benjamin, A.J., & Bartholow, B.D. (1998). Does the gun pull the trigger? Automatic priming effects of weapon pictures and weapon names.
Psychological Science, 9, 308-314.
Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and
prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-359.
Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.
Anderson, C.A., & Dill, K.E. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 78, 772-790.
Anderson, C. A. & Huesmann, L. R. (in press). Human Aggression: A Social-Cognitive View. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology …
Anderson, C.A., & Sechler, E.S. (1986). Effects of explanation and counterexplanation on the development and use of social theories. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 50, 24-34.
Anderson, K.B., Anderson, C.A., Dill, K.E., & Deuser, W.E. (1998). The interactive relations between trait hostility, pain, and aggressive thoughts. Aggressive
Behavior, 24, 161-171.
Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6,
589-595.
Bandura, A. (1971). Psychotherapy based upon modeling principles. In A. E. Bergin and S. L. Garfield (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change.
New York: Wiley.
Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning theory analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1983). Psychological mechanism of aggression. In R.G. Geen & E.I. Donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical reviews (Vol. 1, pp. 140). New York: Academic Press.
Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 3-11.
Bargh, J.A., Lombardi, W.J., & Higgins, E.T. (1988). Automaticity of chronically accessible constructs in person X situation effects on person perception: It’s just a
matter of time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 599-605.
Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59-73.
Berkowitz, L. (1993). Pain and aggression: Some findings and implications. Motivation and Emotion, 17, 277-293.
Berkowitz, L., & Geen, R. G. (1967). Stimulus qualities of the target of aggression: A further study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 364-368.
Bower G. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129-48.
Bryant, J., Carveth, R. A., & Brown, D. (1981). Television viewing and anxiety: An experimental examination. Journal of Communication, 31, 106-119.
Bryant, J., & Zillmann, D. (1979). Effect of intensification of annoyance through unrelated residual excitation on substantially delayed hostile behavior. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 470-480.
Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 28, 724-731
Bushman, B. J. (1995). Moderating role of trait aggressiveness in the effects of violent media on aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 950960.
Bushman, B.J., & Anderson, C.A. (in press). Violent video games and hostile expectations: A test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin,
Bushman, B. J., & Bonacci, A. M. (2002). Violence and sex impair memory for television ads. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 557-564.
Bushman, B. J., Carnagey, N. L., & Anderson, C. A. (under review). Video Game Violence Desensitizes Players to Real World Violence.
Bushman, B. J., & Geen, R. G. (1990). Role of cognitive-emotional mediators and individual differences in the effects of media violence on aggression. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 156-163.
Theory in the Study of Media Violence: The General Aggression Model
Bushman, B. J., & Phillips, C. M. (2001). If the television program bleeds, memory for the advertisement recedes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10,
44-47.
Cantor, J. (1994). Fright reactions to mass media. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 213-245). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Cantor, J. (1998). "Mommy, I'm scared": How TV and movies frighten children and what we can do to protect them. San Diego, CA: Harvest/Harcourt.
Cantor, J. (2001). The media and children’s fears, anxieties, and perceptions of danger. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media
(pp. 207-221). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cantor, J. & Sparks, G. G. (1984). Children's fear responses to mass media: Testing some Piagetian predictions. Journal of Communication, 34, 90-103.
Cantor, J. & Wilson, B. J. (1984). Modifying responses to mass media in preschool and elementary school children. Journal of Broadcasting, 28, 431-443.
Cantor, J., Wilson, B. J., & Hoffner, C. (1986). Emotional responses to a televised nuclear holocaust film. Communication Research, 13, 257-277.
Cline, V. B., Croft, R. G., & Courrier, S. (1973). Desensitization of children to television violence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 360-365.
Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82, 407-428.
Crick, N.R., & Dodge, K.A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information processing mechanisms in children's adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115,
74-101.
Dexter, H. R., Penrod, S., Linz, D., & Saunders, D. (1997). Attributing responsibility to female victims after exposure to sexually violent films. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 27, 2149-2171.
Dill, J., & Anderson, C.A. (1995). Effects of justified and unjustified frustration on aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 21, 359-369.
Dill, K.E., Anderson, C.A., Anderson, K.B., & Deuser, W.E. (1997). Effects of aggressive personality on social expectations and social perceptions. Journal of
Research in Personality, 31, 272-292.
Dodge, K. A, & Crick, N. R. (1990). Social information-processing bases of aggressive behavior in children. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 8-22.
Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O., & Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Forgas, J.P. (1992). Affect in social judgments and decisions: A multiprocess model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 227-275.
Freud, S. (1909/1961). Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy (standard ed.). London: Norton.
Freud, S. (1920/1961). Beyond the pleasure principle (standard ed.). London: Norton.
Geen, R. G. (1990). Human Aggression. Pacific Grove, CA: McGraw Hill.
Geen, R.G., & Berkowitz, L. (1966). Name-mediated aggressive cue properties. Journal of Personality, 34, 456-465.
Geen, R.G., & O'Neal, E.C. (1969). Activation of cue-elicited aggression by general arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 11, 289-292.
Geen, R.G., & Quanty, M.B. (1977). The catharsis of aggression: An evaluation of a hypothesis. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,
10, 1-37. New York: Academic Press.
Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Jackson-Beeck, M., Jeffries-Fox, S., & Signorielli, N. (1978). Cultural indicators: Violence profile no. 9. Journal of Communication, 28, 176207.
Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signorielli, N. (1982). Charting the mainstreaming: Television's contributions to political orientations. Journal of
Communication, 32, 100-127.
Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signorielli, N. (1980). The “mainstreaming” of America: Violence profile no. 11. Journal of Communication, 30, 10-29.
Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn’t so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York: The Free Press.
Gunter, B., & Furnham, A. (1984). Perceptions of television violence: Effects of programme genre and type of violence on viewers’ judgments of violent portrayals.
British Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 155-164.
Hansen, C. H., & Hansen, R. D. (1990). The influence of sex and violence on the appeal of rock music videos. Communication Research, 17, 212-234.
Harrison, K., & Cantor, J. (1999). Tales from the screen: Enduring fright reactions to scary media. Media Psychology, 1 (2), 97-116.
Hilgard, E.R., & Bower, G.H. (1975). Theories of learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Huesmann, L. R. (1998). The role of social information processing and cognitive schema in the acquisition and maintenance of habitual aggressive behavior. Chapter
in R. Geen & E. Donnerstein (Eds.) Human aggression: Theories, research and implications for policy. (pp. 73-109). New York: Academic Press.
Huesmann, L. R. (1986). Psychological processes promoting the relation between exposure to media violence and aggressive behavior by the viewer. Journal of
Social Issues, 42, 3, 125-139.
Huesmann, L. R., & Miller, L. S. (1994). Long-term effects of repeated exposure to media violence in childhood. In L. R. Huesmann (Ed). Aggressive behavior:
Current perspectives (pp. 153-186). New York: Plenum Press.
Theory in the Study of Media Violence: The General Aggression Model
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York: Holt.
Janis, I.L., & Mann, L. (1977). Decision making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. New York: The Free Press.
Kirsh, S. J. (1998). Seeing the world through Mortal Kombat-colored glasses: Violent video games and the development of a short-term hostile attribution bias.
Childhood, 5, 177-184.
Krull, D. S. (1993). Does the grist change the mill?: The effect of perceiver's goal on the process of social inference. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19,
340-348.
Krull, D. S. & Dill, J. C. (1996). On thinking first and responding fast: Flexibility in social inference processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22. 949959.
Lazarus, R. S., Speisman, M., Mordkoff, A. M., & Davison, L. A. (1962). A laboratory study of psychological stress produced by a motion picture film.
Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 34, Whole No. 553.
Lewin, K. (1951). Problems of research in social psychology. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Field Theory in Social Science, (pp. 155-169). New York: Harper & Row.
Linz, D. G., Donnerstein, E., & Penrod, S. (1988). Effects of long-term exposure to violent and sexually degrading depictions of women. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 55, 758-768.
Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression. New York: Bantam.
Miller, N. E. (1941). The frustration-aggression hypothesis. Psychological Review, 48, 337-342.
Mischel, W., (1973). Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality. Psychological Review, 80, 252-283.
Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in
personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246-268.
Osborn, D. K., & Endsley, R. C., (1971). Emotional reactions of young children to TV violence. Child Development, 42, 321-331.
Owens, J., Maxim, R., McGuinn, M., Nobile, C., Msall, M., & Alario, A. (1999). Television-viewing habits and sleep disturbance in school children. Pediatrics, 104
(3), 552. (Abstract).
Potter, W. J. (1999). On Media Violence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Schacter, D. L. (2000). Memory systems. Chapter in A. E. Kazdin (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychology, 5, 169-172. New York and Washington, D. C.: Oxford
University Press and the American Psychological Association.
Schachter, S., & Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.
Schank, R.C., & Abelson, R.P. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G.L. (1996). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. Chapter in E. Higgins & A. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic
principles (pp. 433-465). New York: Guilford.
Sedikides, C. & Skowronski, J. J. (1990). Towards reconciling personality and social psychology: A construct accessibility approach. Journal of Social Behavior and
Personality, 5, 531-546.
Shaw, M. E., & Costanzo, P. R. (1982). Theories of Social Psychology (pp. 3-18). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Singer, M. I., Slovak, K., Frierson, T., & York, P. (1998). Viewing preferences, symptoms of psychological trauma, and violent behaviors among children who watch
television. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37 (10), 1041-1048.
Smith, S. L., & Donnerstein, E. (1998). Harmful effects of exposure to media violence: Learning of aggression emotional desensitization, and fear. In R. G. Geen &
E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Human aggression: Theories, research, and implications for social policy (pp. 167-202). New York: Academic Press.
Sparks, G. G. & Cantor, J. (1984). Developmental differences in fright responses to a television program depicting a character transformation. Journal of
Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 30, 309-323.
Steyer, J.P. (2002). The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media’s Effect on Our Children. New York: Atria Books.
Surbeck, E. (1975). Young children’s emotional reactions to TV violence: The effect of children’s perceptions of reality. Dissertation Abstracts International, 35,
5139-A.
Thomas, M. H. (1982). Physiological arousal, exposure to a relatively lengthy aggressive film, and aggressive behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 16, 7281.
Thomas, M. H., Horton, R. W., Lippincott, E. C., & Drabman, R. S. (1977). Desensitization to portrays of real life aggression as a function of television violence.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 450-458.
Thorndike, E. L. (1898). Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals. Psychological Monographs, 2 (Whole No. 8).
Uleman, J.S. (1987). Consciousness and control: The case of spontaneous trait inferences. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13, 337-354.
Theory in the Study of Media Violence: The General Aggression Model
Wilson, B.J., Kunkel, D., Linz, D., Potter, J., Donnerstein, E., Smith, S.L., Blumenthal, E., & Gray, T. (1997). Violence in television programming overall: University
of California, Santa Barbara Study. In M. Seawall, (Ed.), National television violence study (Vol. 1). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Wilson, B.J., Kunkel, D., Linz, D., Potter, J., Donnerstein, E., Smith, S.L., Blumenthal, E., & Gray, T. (1998). Violence in television programming overall: University
of California, Santa Barbara Study. In M. Seawall, (Ed.), National television violence study (Vol. 2). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Wolpe, J. (1958). Psychotherapy by reciprocal inhibition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Zillmann, D. (1971). Excitation transfer in communication-mediated aggressive behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 419-434.
Zillmann, D. (1983). Arousal and aggression. In R. Geen & E. Donnerstein (Eds.), Aggression: Theoretical and empirical reviews(vol. 1, pp. 75-102). New York:
Academic Press.