A-Level Psychology (AQA)

Topic Summaries

Aggression

Media influences on aggression

  • Computer games:
    • 👥 Bartholow and Anderson (2002) compared levels of aggression whilst playing a violent video game (Mortal Combat) compared to playing a golf simulator. He found that those in the violent conditions delivered sounds of a greater decibel by 1.3.
    • 👥 DeLesi (2013) found a strong correlation between amount of time spent playing violent video games and those in a juvenile detention centre.
    • 👥 Anderson (2010) conducted a meta-analysis of 136 studies to show a strong correlation between exposure to aggressive media and increased chance of observers becoming aggressive in both collectivist and individualist cultures.
  • Desensitisation, disinhibition and cognitive priming:
    • Desensitisation: when a person is repeatedly exposed to violent acts, it causes them to regard it as more normal and therefore feel less empathy for the victim. For example, 👥 Weisz and Earls (1995) found that men who had watched a film with a violent rape scene in it were more accepting of the assertion that women often make false accusations and were less likely to find a defendant guilty in a rape trial.
    • Disinhibition: occurs through the process of social learning where our restrains towards violence are lowered through social learning. The media can be seen to reward aggressive behaviour and show minimal negative consequence. This leads to new social norms being developed.
    • Cognitive priming: 👥 Huesmann (1988) theorised that repeated exposure to violent acts being rewarded results in us developing a mental framework which allows us to make predictions about violent behaviour in real life scenarios. This changes our cognition and we are primed to anticipate consequences of aggression

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