Complete Revision - Studies

Sprafkin et al 1975 - 6 year old children in 3 conditions.

• 1 - watched and episode of lassie with pupy rescue
• 2 - watched an episode of lassie with no puppy rescue
• 3 - episode of the Brady Bunch

Those who had viewed the rescue, spent more time comforting a distressed puppy in the middle of a game, despite jepordising their chances of winning. - support SLT.

:) Used real TV programmes.    X Desirable characteristics.        X Parental Consent

Sagotsky et al 1981 - studied 6-8 year olds to see how long effects of pro-social behaviour last after seeing it on TV. Both age groups showed increase in co-operative behaviour. Only 8 year olds continued 7 weeks later.

X Ignores biological approaches

X No long-term effects; O'Connor 1980 found children playing with others is a long term effect but this may be due to the positive experience of playing; rather than the pro-social message.

Husemann et al 2003 - longitudinal study of children in the 1970's, followed up in 1991 in their early 20's. Found watching violent TV shows aged 6-9 correlated with measures of adult aggression years later.

:) Longitudinal    X Drop-out rates

Gunter 2002 - studied impact of TV to the remote colony of St.Helena. 2 years before TV was introduced, teacher of 23 children asked to comment on their anti-social behaviour. Incidence was found to be low. 5 years later, Gunter found boys had seen more violent TV shows and displayed more anti-social behaviour than girls on the second assessment. 

:) Proper comparisons can be made X. Bias - teachers ratings.

X. Fails to distinguish between types of violence

X. Correlational analysis - only shows a relationship not a causual 

X. Aggressive tendencies

Physiological Arousal - Carnagey, Anderson and Bushman (2007) - examined effects of violent games on later responses to real life. Allocated 2 conditions: Playing a violent game for 20 mins and a non-violent game for 20 mins. All then watched a film depicting real life violence while wired to measure physiological response including heart rate and galvanic skin response. Those playing violent game had lower HR and GSR implying a reduced response.

:) Variables tightly controlled - allow cause and effect to be established.

Decreasing/Increasing helping behaviours - Sheeze and Grazino (2005) - 48 participants, playing either violent or non-violent version of game DOOM in pairs. Option of co-operating or exploiting each other. Those with violent = more likely to exploit.

Desensitisation to violence/increasing aggressive behaviours, feelings and cognitions - Bartholow (2006)

X. Depend on situation + characteristics of person.   X. Subsequent behaviour

X.Correlational research - cause and effect                 X. Ethical issues

• Petty and Cacioppo 1986 - there are 2 specific routes to attitude change.
• Central - quality of argument, permanent attitude change.
• Peripheral - Little attention and thought is given to the message and shortcuts are used to make decisions. Attitude change temporary. 
• Individuals differ in their need for cognition and that some people enjoy analysing arguments. Those with low need for cognition are assumed to primarily rely on opinions of trustworthy sources.

• :) Studies have shown central processing leads to attitude change that is longer lasting due to greater effort and time.
• :) Takes into account individual differences via different processes.
• :) Supporting need for cognition - Vidrine et al 2007: exposed students to a fact-based (central route) or emotion based (peripheral) smoking risk campaign. Those with higher need for cognition were more influenced by fact based message, people with low need for cognition more influenced by emotions.
• X. Oversimplified - assumes they don't occur at the same time - routes could happen at the same time - content and expert. (Beniot, 2008)
• X. EML doesn't identify when message processing stops rather it focuses on the type of processing.

Absorption-Addiction Model - Giles and Maltby 2006: 3 levels of addiction.

1: Entertainment- social: Attracted as sources of entertainment and social interaction.

2: Intense-personal: Celebrity worship includes intense and compulsive feelings.

3: Boarderline-pathological - behaviour uncontrollable: actual relationship.

Maltby 2001 - researched link between mental health and worship and found those who reached the first stage had a degree of social dysfunction as they lacked social relationships and lonely.

X. Not formed on basis of loneliness Schiappa et al - loneliness was not the predictor of formation.

X. Sood and Rogers 2000 suggested more socially active and motivated people likely to engage in parasocial.

X. Giles 2003 - not always fanciful: can cause attitude change and behaviour.

X. Oversimplified - many different motivational factors e.g. health/football

Gossip Theory - McAndrew 2008

Attraction - Waynforth and Dunbar 1995

X. Post-hoc: after the event so hard to test.

X. Importance of experiences - early attachments may develop such behaviours as celeb worship.

X. Consistent evidence females are attracted to males with resources. However, may be attracted to celebs as familiar and accept them as friends.

X. Offers some explanation but does not say why people are only attracted to one celeb and why some are not attracted to any. 

Cheung and Yue 2003 - survey of 833 Chinese teenagers, found idol worship was associted with low levels of work and low self-esteem. Those who worshiped idols from TV demonstrated the lowest level of identity achievement. 

Maltby et al 2001 - Celebrity worshippers have lower levels of psychological well-being. Maltby administered the CAS and General Health Questionnaire to 370 UK adults and found scores on the intense personal subscale predicted depression and anxiety. Concluded worship is a result of poor psychological well-being.

:) Ethical issues were condifered - (p)'s in Maltby were told results would be confidential and were informed of the purpose of the study.

X GHQ designed for non-clinical population so may not account for mental health issues that may occur in the 3rd stage of CAS.

:) Form of behaviour is benefitial as some researchers suggest that sharing information and experience with friends might promote productive social relationships and serve as a buffer against stressors.

James et al 2008 - found a link between pathology and violence. Over 2/3 of attackers were mentally ill.

McCutcheon et al 2006 - suggested attachment patterns in childhood may contribute to adult problems. If insecurely attached children are more likely to have relationship difficulties as adults, then they might be more likely to develop parasocial relationships. These may be appealing as they make few demands and do not run the risk of rejection.

Mullen et al 1999 - investigated the behaviours, motivation and psychopathology of stalkers. He concluded that stalkers have a range of motivations, from reasserting power over a partner who rejected them to the quest for a loving relationship. Most stalkers are lonely and socially incompetent, but all have the capacity to frighten and distress their victims.

X. Historical bias - modern technology has created a new medium for stalking - cyberstalking. Fisher and Cullen 2000 surveyed over 4,000 female undergraduates and found 13% had stalked in this way. 

X. Cyberstalking is not taken seriously - Alexy et al 2005: gave students a brief description of  a real-life case of cyberstalking that resulted in prosecution and only 30% of students judged the behaviours involved to be 'stalking.' 

Characteristics should be:

• Source - expert and successful/attractive
• Message - two sided, repeated exposure, fear.
• Receiver - self-esteem, age, intelligence (women more easily persuaded, as are people with low-esteem)

X. Assumes people think carefully and rationally, but most of the time people jump to conclusions.

X. Potter 1996 - approaches have failed to consider the importance of collectivist attitudes e.g. race.

X. Difficult to assess overall model; numerous factors identified, not clear how they influence each other.

X. Prediction of self-esteem has been disproved.

:) Sees attitudes as belonging to individuals.