VIOLENCE SEE, VIOLENCE DO? STUDIES SEE LINK BETWEEN CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR AND AGGRESSION ON TELEVISION Series: MEDIA MIRROR: Violence and the media in America. This week The Morning Call will take a look at the issue of violence in the media and violence in our nation. 
Salter, Rosa . Morning Call ; Allentown, Pa. [Allentown, Pa]26 Apr 1994: D01.
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ABSTRACT (ABSTRACT) 
"I don't think there's any doubt anymore that there's a causal connection between watching violence on television and being more aggressive," said Dr. Lawrence Eron, a University of Michigan professor who chaired the APA's 1992 Commission on Violence and Youth.
 
Last year, researchers at California State University at Fullerton had similar results when they exposed 6-11-year-olds to an episode of the currently popular "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." The episode contained 140 acts the researchers considered violent.
 
After watching the live-action show, in which teen-aged characters "morphize" into superheros who use karate chops, magic swords and robot dinosaurs to fight off monsters, the children immediately responded by harassing other children with karate kicks and shoves, right down to specific somersaults and arm movements, the researchers found.

FULL TEXT
See also "Mimicking of action in shows no surprise to Valley teachers" by ROSA SALTER, The Morning Call which appears on the same page.
 
And now for some facts, brought to you by the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
 
* The United States has the highest homicide rate of any Western industrialized nation.
 
* More teen-agers are killed by guns than all diseases combined.
 
* One in every 200 Americans is injured by violence every year.
 
* Homicide has become the 10th leading cause of death among all Americans, and the No. 1 cause of death for black men and women aged 15-34.
 
* By 2003, deaths from gunshot wounds are expected to surpass deaths from auto accidents.
 
Worried yet?
 
Many Americans are.
 
And increasingly they're questioning whether there's a connection between the violence they see depicted daily in the media and what some are now calling an epidemic of violence in the nation.
 
But, so far, the answer hasn't been as clear or as simple as many might have hoped.
 
Still, evidence is accumulating that watching media violence is not a neutral activity.
 
In the past three decades, at least three major national organizations -- the Surgeon General's Commission in 1972, the National Institute of Mental Health in 1982 and the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1992 -- have reviewed the extensive record of scientific research and concluded that viewing violence does increase violence, with the effects especially pronounced among the young.
 
"I don't think there's any doubt anymore that there's a causal connection between watching violence on television and being more aggressive," said Dr. Lawrence Eron, a University of Michigan professor who chaired the APA's 1992 Commission on Violence and Youth.
 
"There is an immediate effect (on children) and there is a long- lasting effect on the formation of their personalities as well," he said.
 
Others are less certain.
 
"All these people are well-intentioned, but their research doesn't allow for the jump from the laboratory to real-life predicting," said Dr. Stuart Fischoff, a professor of media psychology at California State University at Los Angeles and an outspoken critic of many of the studies' methodology and an opponent of media censorship based on its violent content.
 
"The best predictors of violence are simply violence in one's real life -- family violence, peer-group violence and neighborhood violence," he said.
 
However, those who argue for a strong media connection between images of violence and acts of violence have several kinds of studies in their corner.
 
One is research showing that after television is introduced into a culture, homicide rises markedly.
 
For example, University of Washington researcher Brandon Centerwall has found that 10-15 years after the introduction of television in both the United States and Canada, the homicide rates among whites nearly doubled.
 
Centerwall predicted, and then subsequently found, a similar trend in South Africa, where television was banned by the government until 1975.
 
By 1987, the homicide rate among whites there increased 130 percent; apparently, he writes, it takes that long for a generation of youths to be exposed to enough violent programming to have an impact.
 
A second area is studies of those incarcerated for committing violent crimes. Representative are two studies of young male felons in prison for offenses including homicide, rape and assault.
 
In the studies, 22 and 34 percent of those questioned reported having consciously imitated crime techniques they saw on television.
 
A third, well-established area of research has found that when children are shown action-packed movies or television, the youngsters tend to behave aggressively afterward.
 
One of the first studies dates to 1956, when researchers sat a dozen children down to watch an action-packed "Woody Woodpecker" cartoon and a dozen more to watch "The Little Red Hen."
 
When the children's behavior was later observed, the youngsters who watched "Woody Woodpecker" were more likely to hit other children, break toys and be verbally aggressive than the other children.
 
Last year, researchers at California State University at Fullerton had similar results when they exposed 6-11-year-olds to an episode of the currently popular "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." The episode contained 140 acts the researchers considered violent.
 
After watching the live-action show, in which teen-aged characters "morphize" into superheros who use karate chops, magic swords and robot dinosaurs to fight off monsters, the children immediately responded by harassing other children with karate kicks and shoves, right down to specific somersaults and arm movements, the researchers found.
 
Experts say that children's propensity to imitate the actions stem from age-related inability to discriminate between reality and fantasy and because children learn primarily by imitating the behavior of adults.
 
Critics, meanwhile, note this kind of study generally may show only transitory changes, harmless fantasy play and a neutral response that isn't unique to watching violence. For example, people who watch a movie about eating, eat afterward.
 
However, other researchers say a steady diet of violence in young children is insidious, framing long-lasting attitudes and behavior patterns.
 
"By seeing characters behaving aggressively, they think this is the way to behave. They think this is the way you get things you don't have, vent frustration, solve problems, relate to people. They develop internalized norms about aggressive behavior," Eron said.
 
Eron, who has been studying the same groups of children over 30 years with a colleague, said his studies show a significant relationship between exposure to television violence at age 8 and anti-social acts, including violent crime and spouse abuse, 22 years later.
 
Other recent studies have focused on different effects. According to the APA review of the research, studies now provide evidence that viewing violence changes people's attitudes and behaviors in several ways, including:
 
* Increasing fear of becoming a victim of violence, self- protective behaviors and general mistrust of others.
 
* Desensitizing viewers to both media portrayals of violence and actual violence committed against others.
 
* Leading to a decreased likelihood to aid victims of violence.
 
* Increasing viewers' appetites for becoming involved with violence or exposing themselves to violence.
 
However, what causes people to become violent is still not well understood, the APA report notes, pointing out that media violence is just one in a mix of factors.
 
They include biology and genetics, childhood abuse and neglect by parents, seeing violence in the family or neighborhood, alcohol and drug abuse, economic inequality and lack of opportunity, cultural conditioning, intellectual skills, emotional stability and gender differences.
 
"You have everything contributing," said Fischoff.
 
"The biggest problem I have with all the research on violence and media is that we're so mired in violence all around us, that we look for the most blatant sources, and that happens to be the media. It's the one we think we can do something about," he added.
 
"But simultaneous with the increase in the amount of TV watching is also a change in the socioeconomic structure of society, an increase in immigration, the breakdown of the influence of the church and other social institutions, an increase in divorce, more single parents and a rising availability of weapons. They're all correlated."
 
Eron said some researchers estimate that about 10 percent of the violence in society is directly related to media violence. "That means that 90 percent is due to something else," he said.
 
And, he said, it's still unclear which individuals are likely to be most negatively affected. "It's kind of like cigarettes and lung cancer," he said. "Not everybody who smokes gets lung cancer, and not everybody who has lung cancer smoked."
 
But with the increasing costs of violence, both in terms of lives disrupted and destroyed and in terms of money spent by the health- care system to patch up violence's victims -- about $5.3 billion each year, according to one federal government estimate -- calls to curb possible causes of violence are likely to rise.
 
"Violence really is a public health issue," said Dr. Barbara Taliferro, a co-founder of Physicians for a Violence-Free Society, in Dallas, Texas, a group dedicated to teaching physicians how to prevent violence injuries among their patients as well as lessening its influence in society.
 
"So many people are just resigned to the fact that we have violence out of control, that think we're just a violent society, that there's nothing we can do, that we're born with violent tendencies," she said.
 
"Well, we may be born that way, but that doesn't mean we have to use them," she added. "We're not born toilet-trained, either."
 
Illustration
PHOTO by UNKNOWN. CAPTION: `Mighty Morphin Power Rangers' characters go through their paces. Children often imitate action in such TV shows, experts say.

DETAILS

People: 	Eron, Lawrence 	

Publication title: 	Morning Call; Allentown, Pa. 	

Pages: 	D01 	

Number of pages: 	0 	

Publication year: 	1994 	

Publication date: 	Apr 26, 1994 	

Section: 	HEALTH &SCIENCE 	

Publisher: 	Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 	

Place of publication: 	Allentown, Pa. 	

Country of publication: 	United States, Allentown, Pa. 	

Publication subject: 	General Interest Periodicals--United States 	

ISSN: 	08845557 	

Source type: 	Newspapers 	

Language of publication: 	English 	

Document type: 	NEWSPAPER 	

ProQuest document ID: 	392667149 	

Document URL: 	https://proxy.cecybrary.com/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/violence-see-do-studies-link-between-childrens/docview/392667149/se-2?accountid=144789 	

Copyright: 	Copyright Morning Call Apr 26, 1994 	

Last updated: 	2017-11-05 	

Database: 	ProQuest One Academic 	

 
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