Seeing and Experiencing Violence.

[Tank]

Seeing and Experiencing Violence Makes Aggression 'Normal' for Children

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) â€" The more children are exposed to violence, the more they think it's normal, according to a study in the current Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE). Unfortunately, the more they think violence is normal, the more likely they are to engage in aggression against others...

This has interesting ramifications for video games and violent TV/Films. If correlation = causation then this research is very telling on the nurture effects on aggressive behaviour.

[fester30]

Seeing and Experiencing Violence Makes Aggression 'Normal' for Children

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2011) â€" The more children are exposed to violence, the more they think it's normal, according to a study in the current Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE). Unfortunately, the more they think violence is normal, the more likely they are to engage in aggression against others...

This has interesting ramifications for video games and violent TV/Films. If correlation = causation then this research is very telling on the nurture effects on aggressive behaviour.

If TV, video game, and even live violence is a child's example while growing up of how to handle conflict, that's what that child will learn.  However, if the child's example and education about how to handle conflict is a parent telling the child that violence is a last resort and that killing is wrong and has consequences, then the child will have to choose between the parent and the entertainment.  I won't claim to know what a child will always choose, as I haven't read any studies on it.  However, I know I chose parent because my parents, and their approval, were more important to me than the video games, tv, etc.  

Disclaimer: while I do have a BS in Social Psychology, I think some would argue that's almost a BS in B.S.  I'm not speaking as an expert based on any studies or science, just by what I perceive as common sense, so this is my personal opinion.

[Davin]

I disagree with this statement from the paper (page 5):

Exposure to violence can also increase aggression regardless of where the exposure occurs, in the real world (i.e., at home, at school, in the neighborhood) or in the virtual world (i.e., on TV), and regardless of whether the person is a witness or a victim.

Mainly because they didn't test to see if the increase in violence changed if they tested for each individually. Each mention of increased violence included all the types lumped together. As if all are already known as equall affectors. I really don't see how they could have come to the conclusion that aggression increases due to exposure violence regardless of the type without at least attempting to factor out each one to see if they actually are equal factors.

I think another study needs to be done on whether each of the different types of violent experiences are equal factors before just coming to that conclusion.

[SSY]

I think the whole "video games make our kids killers" thing will disappear in a few years when the generation of people doing the studies were all raised with games. I imagine many of the people already are in this group.

Before this we had "violence on TV makes our kids killers", before that it was rock music, before that it was suggestive sculptures and artworks.

[Cecilie]

Having two older brothers, I grew up with violent video games and it hasn't affected me at all. I completely agree with SSY on this.

[Tank]

Having two older brothers, I grew up with violent video games and it hasn't affected me at all. I completely agree with SSY on this.

How could you know that the games have not affected you in some way? It's not like you are one of a pair of twins separated at birth, one of whom, you, was subjected to the games and the other twin had a life exactly the same as yours except there were different non-violent games.

We appear to be a combination of genes, memes and experiences. In a small way we change all the time. Simply reading this post will have materially changed the wiring of the neurons in your brain. Your brain has evaluated what I have written and in composing your reply, or not, you will have internalised a argument and the written it. We are all influenced by what we perceive all the time. I think that to make a categorical statement about the way all people behave all the time ie 'they are not influenced by violent images' is dangerous as it implies that all people are identical. As even identical twins are not actually identical either physically or mentally I do not see how a generalised view of how all people will behave under given situations is a logically indefensible position.

[februarystars]

Having grown up in the era of violent movies, TV, and video games, I've become extremely desensitized to visuals of violent behavior and its results, to the point that real life occurrences of violence don't provoke what I think ought to be an appropriate emotional response. I don't think it has in any way influenced violent behavior in me, but maybe it's because I also grew up with a strong moral foundation, where the aggressively behaved children might lack that.

[Davin]

I agree with you Tank of what we appear to be. As well as the dangers of implying that we're all the same. My problems are with the study itself that looks like it's not very rigorous. They did not give very many details of the study (the questions that were asked would be very important because some questions can be very suggestive and can stear the answers a certain way especially with people so young), and they did not even explain how they know that the one thing "violence on TV" is an independent factor. Just like including pickel consumption with plane crash statistics can show the correlation/causation problem, they did not mention any efforts to show that there is correlation from seeing violence on TV to violence, just lumped it with all the other statistics which have already shown a correlation from experiencing them to violence.

[Prometheus]

I'd say that so long as the individual understands that games and TV are not reality there shouldn't be much of an impact from them. Sure there will be a percentage of any population innately inclined toward aggressive and/or antisocial behavior and they may be encouraged to be violent or more violent by seeing "rambo" characters being glamorized in movies and games. The media likes to bend the truth about this sort of thing to boost ratings. I remember reading about a murder which media outlets tried to blame on Dungeons and Dragons. The killer in that case had simply played D and D once or twice in college and the detectives over the case stated that they did not believe the game had anything to do with the killing. But as best i can tell my generation isn't significantly more or less violent than previous generation and we are playing more violent games and watching more violent movies and tv than any generation so far. So if the games and movies are turning us all into psychopaths, where are the numbers that prove it?

I think that what has the biggest impact is the human interaction we get from our family and community. I went to school with dozens of "problem children" who came from abusive homes. Most of them have grown up to become criminals. But of all the males my age who came from "normal" homes and play violent games, very few of us have had any serious problems with the law.

[Twentythree]

This study is skewed and no real scientific conclusions can be gleaned form it. The sample group of 777 children came from one small Provence in northern Spain, all the participants were Caucasian with most participants being close to a medium level of affluence. It's impossible to gain any true scientific insight on humanity as a whole from this study. What it does show is that 777 students with an average age of 9.9 years from the same Provence in Spain who have been subjected to taking surveys on violence will report for the most part that violence is more "normal" 6 months later. This study indicates that these children had witnessed violence. But so many other factors are present in a child's day to day life especially at such a young age that will cause all sorts of variance in the answers they give. Not to mention the fact that these same children were part of a study on violence. Perhaps the headline should read, "Very select children from a very select sample area have a vague but seemingly increased perception of the "normalness" of violence 6 months after being exposed to a scientific survey on the "normalness" of violence." Not nearly as catch as "Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Hurt", but far more accurate. Overall it doesn't seem like this was a terribly beneficial scientific endeavor but I suppose that these researchers have to spend their grant money on something.

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/20 ... l.pdf+html

[fester30]

This study is skewed and no real scientific conclusions can be gleaned form it. The sample group of 777 children came from one small Provence in northern Spain, all the participants were Caucasian with most participants being close to a medium level of affluence. It's impossible to gain any true scientific insight on humanity as a whole from this study. What it does show is that 777 students with an average age of 9.9 years from the same Provence in Spain who have been subjected to taking surveys on violence will report for the most part that violence is more "normal" 6 months later. This study indicates that these children had witnessed violence. But so many other factors are present in a child's day to day life especially at such a young age that will cause all sorts of variance in the answers they give. Not to mention the fact that these same children were part of a study on violence. Perhaps the headline should read, "Very select children from a very select sample area have a vague but seemingly increased perception of the "normalness" of violence 6 months after being exposed to a scientific survey on the "normalness" of violence." Not nearly as catch as "Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Hurt", but far more accurate. Overall it doesn't seem like this was a terribly beneficial scientific endeavor but I suppose that these researchers have to spend their grant money on something.

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/20 ... l.pdf+html

I know sometimes surveys make me feel more violent than video games.

*Source for my feelings are me.  It's a personal opinion of my emotional reaction to surveys and video games, and the comparison between the two.  It's not a very good comparison, as I have never played a video game and taken a survey at the same time or in close proximity, so my statement may actually be wrong.  This is only meant to be poking fun at surveys.  No scientific value should be gleaned from it.