Violence in the Media

By: Marisa, Nick, Victoria, and Casey

Research Question

Among college students, is there a relationship between violent media and violent behavior?

Significance Statement

This topic was done to show that the media can possibly be pertaining to violent behavior in college students

The media can take students away from their studies and depending on what media it is, cause students to show aggression

Factors such as personality can play a huge role on whether the media affects the student negatively

If college students are not educated about this topic, their studies may continue to decrease and more violence will be found on college campuses

Literature Source 1: The influence of media violence on youth. (Anderson)

This study found significant evidence that media violence increases the chances of aggressive or violent behaviors

Linked frequent exposure to aggressive behaviors later on in life specifically physical assaults and spouse abuse

Short term exposure to violent television, film or videogames increases the chance of “physically and verbally aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts and aggressive emotions”

Our study agrees with this source that media violence does increase the chances of violent behavior both in the short term and in the long-term

Literature Source 2: Media violence, physical aggression, and relational aggression in school age children (Gentile, Coyne, Walsh)

A longitudinal study of 430 3rd – 5th grade Minnesota students, average age of a child was 9.7 years, and 49% of the students surveyed were female, two trials were done

Concluded that media violence exposure predicted higher verbally aggressive behavior, more aggressive behavior in relationships, higher rates of physically aggressive behavior, and less social behavior

There was a significant positive correlation between media violence exposure hostile behavior and verbally/physically aggressive behaviors

This source also agrees with our thesis that there is a relationship between violent media exposure and violent behaviors.

Literature Source 3: Personality, parental, and media influences on aggressive personality and violent crime in young adults (Ferguson, Cruz, Martinez, Rueda, Ferguson DE, Negy)

Survey of 355 undergraduate students enrolled at a state university in the South, the average age was 19.6 years old, equal amounts of males and females were interviewed, included various races in

Examines the effects that media violence, personality factors and exposure to physical abuse had on the behaviors of the subjects

Does not agree with our results because it says that the only predicting factor of aggressive behavior was direct physical abuse. It says that exposure to violent video games and television or family violence were not predictive of aggressive behaviors.

Literature Source 4: A Calm View of Video Violence (Nature)

Research indicated that violent behavior is not simply caused by one factor, it is a culmination of many factors including biology, individual, family, peer, school and community factors

Did indicate that watching abnormally large amounts of violent television or video games may contribute to violent behaviors in some people

Does not completely agree with our findings because it says that there are many contributing factors to violent behavior in humans and it can’t be attributed to just one factor, although media violence could contribute to the occurrence of violent behavior

Literature Source 5: The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence (Carnagey)

Research shows that exposure to violent video games increases the amount of aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physical arousal and aggressive behaviors.

Study monitored heart rate and galvanic skin response of participants after they had played 1 of 8 violent or non-violent videogames for twenty minutes and then watched a 10 minute video of real life violence

Studied the effects that violent media has on the desensitization of humans to real life violence, found that those that had played the violent video game had lower heart rate and GSR than those that played the non-violent game

This article is consistent with the results that we had from our study because this article talks about the desensitization of people after being exposed to violent media, this could lead to the conclusion that because we are less effected by the real-world violence that our behaviors could change also to being more violent

Literature Source 6: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A Meta-analytic Review of Positive and Negative Effects of Violent Video Games (Ferguson)

Meta analysis review of articles that discuss the impact that violent video games have on players

Studies lacked sufficient support for the argument that playing violent video games is associated with higher aggression, did have sufficient evidence that playing violent video game play increases visuospatial cognition

This article does not agree with our results because it states that there was not a significant relationship between students playing violent video games and an increase in aggressive behavior.

Literature Source 7: Is Basic Personality Related to Violent and Non-Violent Video Game Play and Preferences? (Chory, Goodboy)

Participants filled out measurement papers about their personality and their frequency of video game play and also their most frequently played video game

Personality type may be a good indicator of violent video game use

Found that the more open and extroverted individuals and less agreeable and neurotic individuals preferred to play more violent video games

This source indicates another factor of aggressive behavior beyond the influence that violent media has on behavior. This shows the inverse of our theory because it says that personality and behavior influences whether or not a person plays violent video games not that violent media causes violent behaviors.

Literature Source 8:Lontudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression ( Anderson)

This study was done to investigate if video games have the potential to make an individual actually express increased aggression levels

Students completed measurement tests that calculated the amount of time they spent playing violent video games

The results of this experiment showed a positive correlation between the amount of time playing violent video games and aggression levels, therefore this relates to our findings

Students who spent more than two hours a day playing violent video games were more likely to exhibit violence

Pilot Test Results

The in class pilot test gave us an idea of how our surveys were going to be completed when we handed them out on campus

Before handing out our surveys we adjusted the positioning of our answer choices so a lazy college student could not just go down the column and check all the choices

We also rearranged our questions so there were yes/no questions mixed throughout the multiple choice questions

Methodology

Survey Consisted of 18 questions 7 yes/no questions 11 multiple choice questions

Handed Survey out to 100 enrolled Rowan students

Posted it on Facebook (to get students from other colleges) Only had 8 responses

6 females (3 from GCC, 1 from Widner, 2 from Rutgers) 2 males (1 from temple, 1 from William Patterson)

Methodology cont.

Questions asked: Gender

So we could compare the violence viewed between males and females

Major and GPA To see the persons work ethic

Crime, physical fight, verbal fight To see the person’s aggression

Video games, internet, and shows Chose topics that everyday people would view

Amount of time viewed To get an understanding of how much media violence the

student is exposed to

Results

From the 100 surveyed 63 males 37 females

79 were able to be used 21 were done incorrectly (17 males, 4 females)

74 resulted in media violence (45 males, 29 females)

5 percent from original surveyed did not show signs of media violence (1 male, 4 females)

Survey Results

How did we decide media violence?

If they answered yes to 2 of the violence questions

AND

If they spent more than 2 hours taking part in violent media (Similar to Anderson’s study)

Analysis of Violence

Six percent (4 males) of the surveys that could be used were convicted of a crime

Forty-four percent (22 males, 13 females) of the surveys used answered that they have been in a physical fight

Eighty-seven percent (45 males, 24 females) of the surveys used answered that they have been in a verbal fight

Twenty-five percent (12 males, 8 females) have been told they have a temper

Eighty-nine percent (44 males, 27 females) of the surveys used answered that they use profanity when communicating

Analysis of Violence

Analysis of Media

Sixty-three percent (39 males, 11 females) of the surveys included play video games and 47 percent (32 males, 5 females) of these students play more than two hours a day

Ninety-five percent (46 males, 29 females) are exposed to television violence and 67 percent (27 males, 26 females) of these students watch T.V. violence for more than two hours a day

Eighty percent (39 males, 31 females) are exposed to violence on the internet and 70 percent of these students are on the internet for more than two hours a day

Analysis of Media

Discussion

Our results showed that 5 percent of the people surveyed did not have both requirements to be considered part of media violence They were only exposed to the media for an hour or

less and did not use profanity, verbal, or physical violence

It was shown that males are exposed to more violence and have more violence outbreaks May have been because we surveyed more males

Overall this study showed that more media violence consists on a college campus than does not

How we can improve our study

Go to other campuses to get a variety of college students Facebook did not work for the variety

Have our questions one choice answers instead of all that apply to avoid students checking every answer down the list

References

Anderson, C. A., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., Huesmann, L., Johnson, J. D., Linz, D., & ... Wartella, E. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth. Psychological Science In The Public Interest (Wiley-Blackwell), 4(3), 81-110. doi:10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x

 

 "A Calm View of Video Violence." Nature 424.6947 (2003). Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Mar. 2012.

Ferguson, C., Cruz, A., Martinez, D., Rueda, S., Ferguson, D., & Negy, C. (2008). Exposure to violence and trauma: personality, parental and media influences on aggressive personality and violent crime in young adults. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 17(4), 395-414

References cont.

Ferguson, C. (2009). Media violence effects: confirmed truth or just another x-file? Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice. 9, 103-126

Carnagey, Nicholas L. "The Effect of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-life Violence." EBSCOhost.com. EBSCOhost.com, 17 July 2006. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.

Anderson, Craig A. "Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States." Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States. Pediatrics. EBSCOhost.com, Jan. 2007. Web. 07 Mar. 2012.

References cont.

Gentile, D. A., Coyne, S., & Walsh, D. A. (2011). Media violence, physical aggression, and relational aggression in school age children: a short-term longitudinal study. Aggressive Behavior, 37(2), 193-206. doi:10.1002/ab.20380

Chory, R. M., & Goodboy, A. K. (2011). Is Basic Personality Related to Violent and Non-Violent Video Game Play and Preferences?. Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, 14(4), 191-198. doi:10.1089/cyber.2010.0076