A.

Introduction
Nowadays it is more than common to come across aggressive acts on television. Programs such as dramas, reality shows, news and even cartoons are not exempt of such aggressive acts being whether verbal or physical. Frequent exposure to such televised acts is increasing with the years and is becoming more and more common than one would expect or even realize. Numerous studies such as those of Paik and Comstock (1994) or Wood and colleagues (1991) have proven that aggressive acts on television have substantial short-term effects on children in particular and on young adults as well. A. Bandura (1963 and 1977) famous for his Bobo Doll experiment has published extensive work on the effects of television violence and his work has even been presented several times to the American congress. He demonstrated in his social learning theory model how aggression on TV shaped the perception in children and how the effects could be carried out in their lives as adults. In another model called the cognitive neo-association model of aggression, Berkowitz (1984) proposes that media violence might prime aggressive ideas, feelings and actions that are already present. In a more recent study Johnson et al. (2002) reported a significant association between the amount of time spent watching television during adolescence and young adulthood and the likelihood of subsequent antisocial behaviour such as threatening aggression and assault. This confirmed an earlier study by Huesmann et al. (2003) showing that exposure to media violence was predictive of aggressive behaviour in early adulthood in both men and women.

This study will investigate whether adult males viewing a certain amount of aggressive acts on television are in turn aggressive in real life or if they present a potential for aggressive behaviour in their lives.

B. Method
Through a survey, adult males from 18 years of age and over will be asked specific questions, and from their answers this study will assess the number of aggressive acts committed in the past year as compared to their exposure to aggressive acts on television. This study will also assess the potential response to aggression as compared to their exposure to violence on television. In the first part, the independent variable will be being exposed or not being exposed to aggressive acts on television and the dependant variable will be the number and the amount of aggressive acts shown in the past year. In the second part, the independent variable will be being exposed or not being exposed to aggressive acts on television and the dependant variable will be the potential response when being punched or insulted. You will find attached at the end of this study a copy of the survey questionnaire.

Details of how the results were obtained: A total number of 57 surveys were answered from random adult males. The following questions were taken into account for this study: The first question was used to discriminate between the people watching or not watching television. Then questions 4 and 5 were used to select the people watching programs containing both physical and verbal violence. Questions 5 and 7 were used to separate the people watching very often and often as compared to people not often watching those programs containing both physical and verbal violence. Questions 9 and 11 were used to assess the number of either verbal or physical aggressive acts a person was involved in during the past year. Questions 10 and 12 were used to discriminate between the people more or less active in those acts versus those who were passive during those aggressive acts. And finally, questions 13 and 14 were used to assess the potential response a person might have in time of aggression. 2

C. Results

Exposed to TV violence Number of people watching TV 55

Not exposed to TV violence 0

Number of people exposed to both verbal and physical violence on TV Number of people very often and often exposed to both physical and verbal violence on TV

53

28

Number of people not often exposed to both verbal and physical violence on TV

16

Table 1: Trend of general results Note: Of a total of 57 surveyed individuals, 28 were considered to be exposed to both physical and verbal violence on TV as compared to 16 which were not considered to be really exposed to both verbal and physical violence on TV.

Exposed to TV violence Number of aggressive acts <10 Between 5-10 Between 0-5 none Mean 7 5.7 22 1.7 10 1 No of people involved in active verbal aggressive acts 2 5 No of people involved in active physical aggressive acts 2 2

Not exposed to TV violence No of people involved in active verbal aggressive acts 0 1 No of people involved in active physical aggressive acts 0 1

7 1.7

10 1.7

Table 2: Comparison of aggressive acts committed in the past year by people exposed to TV violence and by people not exposed to TV violence. Note: A total of 28 people exposed to TV violence. A total of 16 people not exposed to TV violence. The mean represents the mean of the number of people committing violent acts.

Exposed to TV violence % of people involved in active verbal aggressive acts % of people involved in active physical aggressive acts Mean % 61

Not exposed to TV violence 31

18

31

39.5

31

Table 3: Percentages of people in involved in verbal and physical aggressive acts. 4

Graph showing aggressive acts of people exposed to TV violence

No of people involved in verbal or physical aggressive acts

25 20 15 10 5 0
0 <1 tw Be 10 5tw Be n ee 5 0ne no

No of people involved in active verbal aggressive acts No of people involved in active physical aggressive acts

n ee

Number of aggressive acts

Graph 1: Aggressive acts committed in the past year by people exposed to TV violence. Note: taken out of a total of 28 people.

Graph showing aggressive acts of people not exposed to TV violence

No of people involevd in verbal or physical aggressive acts

12 10 8 6 4 2 0
0 <1 n ee tw Be 10 5n ee tw Be 5 0ne no

No of people involved in active verbal aggressive acts No of people involved in active physical aggressive acts

Number of aggressive acts

Graph 2: Aggressive acts committed in the past year by people not exposed to TV violence. Note: Taken out of a total of 16 people. 5

Exposed to TV violence People's reaction Punch back Insult Not respond and call for help to get revenge Not respond and call for professional help Not respond at all Mean No. of people reacting if punched 16 3 1 8 1 9.5 No. of people reacting if insulted 1 15 0 3 7 8

Not Exposed to TV violence No. of people reacting if punched 11 2 0 2 0 6.5 No. of people reacting if insulted 1 8 0 1 4 4.5

Table 4: Potential reactions in response to aggressive behaviour shown by people exposed or not exposed to TV violence. Note: Only the punch back and the insult reactions are considered as aggressive response. The mean represents the mean of the number of people showing a potential for an aggressive response. A total of 28 people exposed to TV violence. A total of 16 people not exposed to TV violence.

Exposed to TV violence 68 % of people possibly reacting when punched 57 % of people possibly reacting when insulted Mean % 62.5

Not exposed to TV violence 81

56

68.5

Table 5: Percentages of people possibly showing aggressive behaviour in times of aggression.

Possible reactions of people exposed to TV violence w hen punched Punch back

Possible reactions of people not exposed to TV violence w hen punched

Punch back

Insult

Insult

Not respond and call for help to get revenge Not respond and call for professional help Not respond at all

Not respond and call for help to get revenge Not respond and call for professional help Not respond at all

Graph 3: Potential response of people exposed to TV violence when punched. Note: taken out of a total of 28 people.

Graph 4: Potential response of people not exposed to TV violence when punched. Note: Taken out of a total of 16 people.

Possible reactions of people exposed to TV violence w hen insulted Punch back

Possible reactions of people not exposed to TV violence w hen insulted Punch back

Insult
Insult

Not respond and call for help to get revenge Not respond and call for professional help Not respond at all

Not respond and call for help to get revenge Not respond and call for professional help Not respond at all

Graph 5: Potential response of people exposed to TV violence when insulted. Note: taken out of a total of 28 people.

Graph 6: Potential response of people not exposed to TV violence when insulted. Note: taken out of a total of 16 people.

D. Conclusion

To begin with, it is important to highlight that for the purpose of this study, verbal and physical violence were taken into account based on J. Leddy and M. OConnells (2002) study where they took verbal and physical abuse into account in their study. However most researchers would define violence most relevant to visual media as in Browne et al.s (2005) review: The exercise of physical force so as to injure or damage persons or property.

Results in table 3, show a higher value of 39,5% representing the mean percentage of the number of people being involved in an aggressive act whether verbal or physical, this group being the one exposed to violence on television. As opposed to that, a value of 31% was obtained from the people not exposed to TV violence but yet still involved in aggressive acts. From these values, one can conclude that the general trend of increased aggressive behaviour showed by the people watching violence on TV was followed. As researchers Bandura (1973) and Huesmann et al. (1988) have demonstrated in their studies, the results of this survey also followed their general findings. However there are certain drawbacks that will have to be highlighted from this work. As these results are based on a survey, first of all one has to rely on the people answering correctly in order for this study to be more accurate and secondly the number of men surveyed does not necessarily reflect what happens in a larger population sample. On an interesting note, one example taken out of the survey represents that of a person who does watch programs containing physical violence, but not that often. This person mentions that he has been involved in a more or less active manner in both verbal and physical aggressive times more than 10 times in the past year. This example is a clear illustration that violence on television is not the cause of his aggressive behaviour in real life.

The second part of this study deals with the potential reactions that people would show if they were involved in an aggressive act. Surprisingly as shown in table 5, a higher a mean value of 68,5% as opposed to a mean value of 62,5% was shown by the people not exposed to TV violence as opposed to those exposed to TV violence respectively. 8

One can conclude from these results that potential aggressive behaviour does not necessarily arise from watching or not watching violent programs on television. They are probably closely linked to the nature of a person. And again, one has to rely on the answers of a surveyed individual to draw any results. Would a person actually react in real life in the same way as in an imaginary situation? There would be too many outside factors, such as the mood, the environment that would need to be taken into account in a real situation. Therefore it would be reasonable to conclude that a potential situation does not represent a factual one. In general, one can conclude that although violence on TV tends to increase aggressive behaviour, as shown by this study there are too many unknowns left unexplored. For example, the people surveyed were taken at random, therefore their every day living environment was not taken into account, and nothing about their childhood or families was known either. Additionally, an alternative hypothesis can also be taken into account in this study, that of Turner et al. (1986) hypothesizing that some or all of the association is due to the fact that aggressive individuals prefer violent television programs. A survey such as this one can therefore be used to measure the trends but as far as to drawing an actual conclusion, more work would have to be done. Examples of the type of work would be the nature and the number of questions asked, which might result in more accuracy. One could also do more research on causation. As stated by A. Martin and I. Smith in their review, the studies supporting the fact that television violence causes aggressive behaviour still contain methodological limitations and thus need more investigations.

As a final statement, there certainly exist a correlation between the viewing of television violence and aggression as showed by numerous groups such as Huesmann and Eron (1986) or Milavsky et al. (1982) but additional methodologies to a survey should be used for research on the subject.

E. Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Michael OConnell, Lecturer in Social Psychology at Trinity College for kindly providing us with articles on his work and Mary Beirne for kindly providing us with references for this work. I also give many thanks to everybody who helped for the survey. Finally, I thank my Lord for all the strength while completing this research.

F. References
1. Bandura, A, Ross, D., Ross, S.A., (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. J Abnorm. Soc. Psychol; 66: 3-11. 2. Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 3. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 4. Berkowitz, L. (1984). Some effects of thoughts on antisocial and pro-social influences of media events a cognitive-neo-association analysis. Psychol. Bull; 95: 410-27. 5. Browne, K.D., Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. (2005). The influence of violent media on children and adolescents: a public-health approach. Lancet; Vol. 365, 702-10. Giauque, A.L., Larsen, J.J., Rembusch, M.E., Lowe, M.J., Li, TQ. ( 2005). Media 6. Huesmann, L.R. (1988). Aggressive behaviour. 34,13. 7. Huesmann, L.R., Eron, L.D. (1986). Television and the aggressive child: A cross-national comparison. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 8. Huesmann, L.R., Moise-Titus J., Podolski, C.L., Eron, L.D., (2003). Longitudinal relations between childrens exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behaviour in young adulthood: 1977-1992. Dev. Psychol. 39: 201-21. 9. Johnson, J.G., Cohen, P., Smailes, E.M., Kasen, S., Brook, J.S. (2002). Television Viewing and Aggressive Behavior During Adolescence and Adulthood. Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol.61 (6), 725-737. 10. Kronenberger, W.G., Mathews, V.P., Dunn, D.W., Wang, Y., Wood, E.A.,

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11. Leddy, J., OConnell, M., (2002). The prevalence, nature and psychological correlates of bullying in Irish prisons. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 7, 131-140. 12. Martin, A.J., Smith, D.I. (1997). Television violence: a review, suggested research design and statistical approach. Australian Journal of Social Issues, Vol.32, no 4 407-430. 13. Milavsky, J.R., Stripp, H.H., Kessler, R.C., and Rubens, W.S. (1982). Television and aggression: A panel study. In D. Pearl (ed), Television and behaviour, Washington DC: Department of Mental Health and Human Services. 14. OConnell, M. (1999). Is Irish Public Opinion towards Crime Distorted by Media Bias? European journal of Communication, Vol. 14(2), 191-212. 15. OConnell, M., Casey, S. (1999). The influence of consequentiality on perception of crime seriousness.Legal and Criminological Psychology, 4, 265-271. 16. Paik, H, Comstock, G, (1994). The effects of television violence on antisocial behavior. A meta-analysis. Commun. Res.; 21: 516-46. Science; Vol. 295 Issue 5564, p2468-p2416, 4p, 2 charts, 1graph. 17. Turner, C.W., Hesse, B.W., Peterson-Lewis, S. (1986). J. Soc. Issues 42,51. violence exposure and executive functioning in aggressive and control adolescents. 18. Wood, W., Wong, F.Y., Chachere, J.G., (1991). Effects of media violence on viewers aggression in unconstrained social-interaction. Psychol. Bull; 109: 371-83.

By Andre Kadima For the completion of the Diploma in Psychology CMIT College, Dublin 2006

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