Tv Violence Linked to Real Thing
Jimmy PorterBoth boys and girls who watch a lot of violence on television have a heightened risk of aggressive adult behavior including spouse abuse and criminal offenses, no matter how they act in childhood, a new study says.
The participants were interviewed at ages 6 to 9 and again in their early 20s, making the study one of the few to follow children into adulthood to gauge the long-term effects of televised violence.
The findings are presented in the March 2003 issue of the journal Developmental Psychology by psychologists L. Howell Huesmann and colleagues at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.
Huesmann said televised violence suggests to children that aggression is appropriate in some situations, especially when used by charismatic heroes, and it erodes a natural aversion to violence.
He recommended parents restrict viewing of violent television and movies by young children and preteens as much as possible.
For one or both sexes, these “high-TV-violence viewers” were also more likely than other study participants in the previous 12 months to have shoved somebody in anger; punched, beaten or choked an adult; or committed a crime or a moving traffic violation.