AQA A2 Psychology Unit 4 - Influence of Media

Physiological - Increased Arousal

• Zillmans excitation transfer theory - arousal from watching violent tv = real life with conflict
• Berkowitz - violence on tv more likely to misinterpreted a situation and see it as provocation
• Overall - Calming effect, Don't mean people get used to real life violence, violence = fright

Physiological - Desensitisation 

• Regular viewing decreases arousal (less reaction everytime they watch)(See it as normal)
• AO2 - Huesmann - don't watch violence tv =  strong stress response compared to others
•  AO2 - Thomas - Those who watched violence on tv first = less aroused
• Overall - explains aggressive behaviour immediately , ignores self control

Congnitive - Influence of Cognitions

• Cognitive priming - scripts of violence from TV, activated in violent real life situations
• Huesmann - Once the child has learnt the script - use as a guide of behaviour
• AO2 - Murray et al - violent programmes,amygdala triggered (eposodic memory triggered)
• AO2 - Josephson - Hockey Players - violent film - walkie talkie - triggered anger 

Cognitive - Justification 

• Tv provides guidelines of behaviour
• Relieves guilt of aggressive children, as they see it as normal
• AO2 - A-Team - Mixture of anti and pro (Good guys, behaving badly)
• AO2 - Liss & Reinhardt - children see characters as role model

Behavioural - Social Learning Theory

• Immitate behaviours of TV role models = Vicarious experience - observe and immiate
• Operant conditioning - positive and negative reinforcement
• Bussey & Bandura - Highly selective when choosing a role mode
• AO2 - Huesmann - violent behaviour in childhood = violence in later life 
• AO2 -Gunter et al - 3h 10min on average - 95 acts of violence more antisocial behaviour 
• Bandura - effects of praise and punishment after a film = effect this had on doll
• Overall - age gender and status effect immitation 
• Overall - deterministic. can't generalise, reductionist, demand characteristics

Helping Behaviour

• Greitimeyer & Osswald - those who played pro-social games = pro-social behaviour (68%)
• AO2 - 85% of video games involve violence / pro-social content = behavioural shift

Multiplayer and Social Commitment

• Lenhart et al - 64% who played multiplayer where committed to civil participation 
• AO2 - prior social commitment = extrenous variable / choice of game, may effect outcome

Theraputic application of video games - Real Life Situations

• Benefits those with PTSD - Relieves psychological trauma in low stress situations
• Holmes et al - Traumatic flashback + playing tetris in 4 hours = interferance with memory 

Violent and Non-violent games

• Sheese & Graziano - violence = expoliting individuals / non = helping individual 
• AO2 - Anti-social undermines pro-social behaviour 

Short Term Effects

• Gentile & Stone - Video violent increased arousal and aggressive behaviour
• AO2 - Lab experiement = lacks ecological validity / only shows short term 

Long Term Effects

• Anderson et al - 7-9yrs exposed to violent games = more verbally and physically aggressive 
• AO2 - Real life behaviour / extrenous variables of other media related violence

Meta -Analysis 

• Gentile & Stone - Larger effect on newer studies as the games are more violent
• AO2 - Era dependant /Individual difference - suseptability/ cause and effect

Overall Evaluations

• Dietz - out of 33 games - 80% containted violence, 21% aimed at women
• Causes of aggression - Taffala - Both males and female arousal increased due to music 

 Religiousity

• Schumaker - decline in religion = increase is celebrity facination 
• AO2 - shows a fundermental need to worship
• Idolise celebrities - merchandise and concerts
• Maltby - CAS - Religion increases = celebrity worship decreased
• Houran et al - Non religious individuals more interested in religious style worship 

Absorbtion - Addiction Model - Celebrity Association Scale

• Absorb the celebrity - believe you are them
• McCutcheon et al - Para-social relationships with celebrities 
• AO2 - Away to cope and escape reality
• Helps gain personal identity and achievement
• Level one CAS - Harmless, Low social identity
• People who absorb their celebrity = mental health issues
• Maltby et al - Celebrity worship = eating disorder - AO2 -want to be them
• Jones - Adolescence use celebrities for social comparision ( Guide to life)
• Chan & Predergast - Addiction to celebrities = materialistic view on life

Attachment Theory

• Insecurely attached in early childhood = celebrity attraction in later life
• Attachement is due to criticism, rejection and disappointment in real relationship
• Insecure resistant = para-social realtionship
• Mcann - Stalking behaviour in adolescents - insecure / insecure resistant = contacting idol

Positive/ Active View

• Jenkins and Jenson - Para-social relationship - active/ positive roles in celebs lives - fanclub
• Fans develop an appreciation for other people with talent
• AO2 - Chamberlin et al - more social power and status of celeb = favourable treatment 

Exposure to Pro social behaviour 

• Point - Greenburg - popular programmes = equivelent number of pro and anti acts 
• Evidence - Woodard - High levels of pro-social behaviour, 77% at least one pro-social act
• AO2 - 4 out of 20 had a pro-social lesson
• AO2 - Johnston & Ettema - Reduction in stereotyping in non-prejudice programmes

Developmental factors

• Point - Skills linked to pro-social behaviour in childhood/ age effects influence
• Evidence - Friedrich and Stien - Pro-social programmes = pro-social behaviour
• AO2 - Mares - weakest influence - adolesents, strongest primary school children
• AO2 -Can be seen as unrealistic as the young retain more information 
• AO2 - Rukenstien and Sprockin - adolesents are less altruistic (Sharing)

Parental Mediations 

• Point - Austin - Effectiveness = discussion must occur about the topic
• Evidence - Valkenburg et al - social coviewing is ineffective must have discussion
• AO2 - Lovelace and Huston - Mixing pro and anti = non effective 

The Hovland Yale model 

• Attention - Noticing / Comprehension - Understanding / Reactance - Yes or No
• These lead to attitude changes

• Source - Holvand and Weiss - Experts are more crediable 
• Source - Kieser & Kieser - Popular and attractive people are more effective
• Message - Walster & Festinger - More effective is persuasion is not known 
• AO2 - Allyn & Festinger - distractions = more persuadeable 
• Message - Meyerwitz and Chiken - Persuation through fear (Unethical and Harmful)
• Audience - Loftus - Young are more suseptiable to persuation (12-16 easily influenced)
• Audience - Qualls & Moore - More persuasion if source is the same age and ethinicity

Evaluations 

• AO2 - X - Not everyone thinks as the model suggests 
• AO2 - Gender - Sistruck and McDavid - Women easily influenced when male orientated
• AO2 - X - Sleeper effect - Source effects are short lasting 
• AO2 - :) - Lab Bias - Allows for replication 
• AO2 - X - Lab - Lacks ecological validity

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Two different routes to persuasion depending on individual

• Some enjoy analysing the message itself - central route
• Some enjoy focusing on the content , ie images, people - Peripheral route
• Vidrine et al - Need for cognition - smoking adverts = central 
• Lin et al - quality or quantity - High cognition = quality
• AO2 - Lessons learnt from shopping online, helps marketing  understand how people think

AO2

• Penner & Fritzsche - Peripheral temporary - Increase with celeb = decreases over time
• Fiske & Taylor - Peripheral route - Quick and easy to learn about " Cognitive Misers"

Hard Sell and Soft Sell Advertising

• Snyder and De Bono - High self monitoring = peripheral , Low self monitoring = Central
• Companies target their adverts to specific audiences (Psychographics)

Product Endorsement 

• Giles - Ready made para-social relationships with celebs as a source of infomation
• AO2 - O'Mahony and Meenaghan - Celeb endorsements are not believed 
• AO2 - Martin et al - More likely to buy if endorsed by fellow student - fashionable
• Giles - Lack of infomation can be more persuasive and Memorable 
• AO2 - Scharrer et al - Gender Bias - Stereotypical roles in adverts

Advertising and Children

• Young - Advertising literacy - children are easily persuaded
• Martin - Adolesents -  difference between progammes and adverts - no persuasion
• Pester Power - Repeat presentation = demand for product (AO2 - Parental mediation) 
• Pester Power - Pine and Nash - correlation between tv exposure and christmas lists
• AO2- Cultural - Swedish christmas lists were shorter (Banned under 12 advertising)

Celebrity Gossip 

• Dunbar - During EEA community aspect grew larger - Social importance in group
• Barkow - Famous people become familiar = friends
• DeBacker - Gossip serves a purpose similar to social grooming

Attractiveness  - Males =  characteristics of fertility /  Females = Benefitical repoduction 

Preferences of Creativity

• Neophilia / Human love of humour - Miller -Value of music and humour in mate selection 
• Darwin - Birdsong - females attracted to those who displayed complex songs
• Duck - Boredom will break a relationship - need for novelity 

Prestige Hypothesis

• More resources and opportunities = Social learning (Henrich & Gil-White)
• Dunbar - Difficult to assess exact traits, 
• Need to copy successful individuals to allow for greater chance of survival 

Stalking - Involving 2 or more events of harrasment causing harm or distress

CAS - Borderline Pathologicial ( the Psychotic Stalker - famous people)

Studies

• McCutcheon et al - insecure attachment types - high scoring on the CAS (Para-social)
• AO2 - Tonin - Stalker = insecure adult attachment 
• Purcell et al - Males = Criminal activity, Females = search for intimacy (Gender Difference)
• Kamphiuis and Emmelkamp - 25% = violent attack , 2% = murder
• Mullen - 80% have serious psychotic disorders
• McCutcheon - Obessive Relational Intrusion and Celebrity Stalking Scale - Persistant pursuit of the celebrity or Persistent threat to celebrity = Reliable and Valid, no desirability

AO2 

• Research is problematic 
• Stalking is different country to country - Ethnocentric (western bias)
• Obsessive rejected stalkers = psycho therapy / Psychopathic stalkers are resistant
• Fisher and Cullen - Cyber Stalking = Anti-social behaviour (anonymous - no fear) 

Para-social relationships - individual is attracted to the celeb, but they have no idea 

• Ashe & McCutcheon - Not a real relationship as there is no criticism or rejection
• Schiappa et al - PS relationships occur when celeb is attractive/similar to individual
• Derrick et al - US Undergraduates, low self esteem - celebs are similar to wanna be selves

Celebrity Attitude scale

• Entertainment social, Intense personal sub-scale, Boarderline Pathological sub-scale

• Para-social and eating - Maltby et al - Females want to be celeb slim = poor body image 
• Commonness - Maltby - 15% entertainment, 5% intense, 2% pathological 
• Celebrity and Developmental problems - Cheung and Yue - low self esteem = idolise 

Evaluations 

• Chueng & Yue - worship teachers = high levels of work 
• Maltby et al - eating - AO2 - Doesn't occur in men
• Negative consequences - High celeb suicide rate = higher suicide ( want to be them)
• Evolutionary - Individuals want to be successful and so look up to them / role models