Effects of Media on Behaviour PSYA4

Explanations for media influences

• Equivalent number of prosocal and antisocial acts on childrens TV.
• Prosocial TV reflects pro-social norms - prosocial behaviours more likely to be reinforced.
• Younger children less able to understand prosocial messages on TV.
• Effective parental mediation - discussing programmes with child.

Research Studies

• Mares meta-analysis - children exposed to prosocial content:
  • Behaved more altruistically
  • Showed higher levels of social control in own behaviour
  • Prosocial effects from other forms of media e.e childrens stories
  • Acted more positicley towards eachother
  • Became less stereotyped in attitudes and beliefs

• TV for preschool children contained few prosocial lessons.
• Prosocial depictions more effective when concrete than abstract
• Post-viewing discussion may enhance pro-social norms but it does not always work
• Strongest effects for pre-school children, weakest for adolescents.
• 'Instructive mediation' effective 'social viewing' ineffective.
• Mixing pro-social and anti-social messages reduces effectiveness of the prosocial message
• Zimmerman did the study of the baby einstein DVDs which may lead to poorer outcomes.
• Real World Application- seasame street is more effective for children of higher socioeconomic class, possibly due to parental mediation effects.

• Cultural differences- there has been limited research into the effects of media in other cultures and societies because TV shows and positive messages may change from culture to culture.

Observational Learning

• Children observe actions of models and may loater imitate them.
• People are more likely to be imitated if perceived as real.

Cognitive Priming

• Activation of exsisting aggressive thoughts and feelings.
• Frequent exposure leads to stored scripts for violent behaviour.

Desensitisation

• Media violence desensitises children to its effects.
• Media violence represents violent behaviour as normal or a positive thing.

Lowered Physiological Arousal

• Heavy TV violence viewers- lower arousal levels to scenes of violence
• Dont react in normal way to violence and less inhibited about using it.

Justification

• Violent TV may justify what is acceptable behaiour.
• Unpunished TV violence decreases concerns about own behaviour

Observational Learning

• Bandura found artificial situation, little evidence of real-world 'copy cat' violence.
• St Helena found no increase in aggression after introduction of TV.

Cognitive Priming

• Josephson found that walkie-talkie acted as a cue for aggression.

Desensitisation

• Cumberbatch found that the fact that children get used to on screen violence does not mean they get used to real-life violence.

Lowered Physiological Arousal

• Excitation-transfer- violence creates readiness to aggress.
• Catharsis found that watching violence causes release of emotions.

Justification

• Negative effects of exposure to violent characters on TV suppoer justification model.
• Belson found an unpredictable link between violent TV and aggression. 

• Problem of demand characteristics in studies and ethical issues which makes aggression more likely.
• Gender Bias- the media used is mainly concentrated on males and their aggressiveness from media and therefore cant be generalised to females.

Negative effects of Game play

• Increases in aggression when hearing a white noise then playing a video game.
• Longtitude studies showed high exposure to violent video games the more aggressive the person becomes.

Negative effects of Computers

• Charles found that anxiety is linked to their use of social networking sights.
• Karpinski found there was a link between lower grades among students and facebook use.

Positive effects of Game Play

• Those who play multi-player games, social issues game (sims) or social commitment games (Halo) have better social skills
• Playing prosocial games and increase helping behaviour

Positive effects of Computers

• Facebook walls can help boost self esteem

Negative effects of Game Play

• Researchers cannot measure 'real-life' aggression.
• Longitudinal studies -pps exposed to other forms of media, could have contributed to agg.
• 'Bi-directional model'- explains link between game play and aggression.

Negative effects of Computers

• Karpinski's study doesnt indicate causal relationship.
• Greenfield- Facebook infantilises the brain.
• Link between facebook use and stress supported in real like study.

Positive effect of Game Play

• Video game companies less likely to develop altruistic games as they are less likely to sell.
• Methodological limitations of surveys.
• Theraputic applications of video games e.g Virtual Irap and Tetris.

Positive effects of Computers

• Hyperpersonal model explains relationship between FB and positive self esteem

• Real World Application- Playing tetris can reduce memory flashbacks after traumatic events
• Cultural Bias- only looking at the impact the video games have had on western communities and have shown no comparison to non-western communities.
• Gender Bias- only lookinga t the way males act and due to larger amount of testosterone they may be more inclined to be aggressive anyway