Harmful Effects of Exposure to Media Violence

Abstract

This chapter focuses on individuals' television viewing habits and examines the amount of violence on American television. It discusses what the research community has concluded about the effects of exposure to media violence and the theoretical mechanisms that account for the impact of exposure to violence on television. The chapter outlines the contextual features of violence that have been found by empirical research to either increase or decrease the risk of harmful effects on both child and adult viewers. It portrays the possible solutions to mitigating the harmful impact of exposure to television violence. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), in 1982, conducted a follow-up investigation to review and integrate research that had been undertaken since the Surgeon General's report in 1972. The NIMH 1982 report concluded that exposure to television violence contributes to aggressive behavior in children, completely supporting the conclusion reached in the Surgeon General's study. The chapter explores the ways in which exposure to media violence contributes to aggression, desensitization, and fear. Two specific developmental differences in cognitive skills or information processing capabilities make younger children more vulnerable to learning aggressive thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors from certain types of violent depictions than older children.