Posted on 03/10/2003 8:20:38 AM PST by chance33_98
Violence On TV Can Have Long-Lasting Impact
Researchers Follow Children Into Adulthood
Posted: 7:21 a.m. EST March 10, 2003 Updated: 9:54 a.m. EST March 10, 2003
Violence on TV could have a long-lasting impact in the real world, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of Michigan found that people who watch violent television as children behave more aggressively even 15 years later.
Researchers say the study is one of the few TV violence studies to follow children into adulthood. They say the findings hold true for any child from any family, regardless of gender or of a person's aggression level as a child.
Parental aggression and the mother's and father's parenting style didn't seem to have an impact on the findings, either.
The study, published in the March issue of the journal Developmental Psychology, links violent TV viewing at ages 6 to 9 to such outcomes as spouse abuse and criminal convictions in a person's early 20s.
It involved 329 adults who were initially surveyed as children in the late 1970s. To check on adult behavior, researchers interviewed them and their spouses or friends, and checked crime records.
At the time the study began, some examples of shows rated as very violent were "Starsky and Hutch," "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Roadrunner" cartoons.
Researcher L. Rowell Huesmann said televised violence suggests to young children that aggression is appropriate in some situations -- especially when it's used by "hero" characters. He said it also erodes a natural aversion to violence.
Huesmann recommends that parents restrict viewing of violent TV and movies by toddlers through pre-teens as much as possible.
Might the study's results simply be an indication that more aggressive children like to watch violent TV shows?
"It is more plausible that exposure to TV violence increases aggression than that aggression increases TV-violence viewing," Huesmann said.
A National Association of Broadcasters spokesman said he thinks "the jury is still out about whether there is a link," saying not all studies find a relationship between TV viewing and violent behavior.
That seems like the most likely explanation.
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