Media influences on anti-social behaviour (8+16)

Bandura's social learning theory (SLT) suggests children learn aggressive behaviour either through direct experience or vicarious experience. Children observe the actions of media models and later may imitate these behaviours. Media can portray positive or negative consequences of anti-social behaviour. If the model gains their objective, children will be more likely to copy the behaviour believing they will gain reward themselves. The more realistic the televised scenes appear to the child the more likely they will repeat the behaviour. 

Cognitive priming is the activation of existing aggressive thoughts and feelings, and explains why children observe one behaviour of TV and commit another. After viewing violence the viewer is primed to respond in an anti-social way. 

Desentisitation explain that normally an individuals anxiety towards violence inhibits its use. Those who are not used to watching media violence are likely yo be shocked when witnessing real life violence. However, those who frequently expose themselves to media violence will likely become 'desenitised'. Therefore exposure to media violence generalises to real world settings causing less anxiety making violent acts easier to commit. 

Phillips found a correlation between crime statistics over the 10 days following a televised boxing match. A rise in the number of murders was found, but no such rise occurred after televised super bowl matches. This provides support for observational SLT suggesting a positive correlation between observing violence on TV and increased anti-social behaviour. An issue that occurred within Bandura's theory and bobo doll study was it was suggested SLT may not generalise to adults. However, this study suggests observational learning and SLT applies to adults, increasing SLT's validity and generalisations across age groups. However, correlational data cannot establish cause and effect and other variables may play a role in leading to increased aggression. There is also no way of knowing whether those who committed the murders watcher the boxing match. Other confounding variables that are unaccounted for may have caused the increased anti-social behaviour. 

Drabman et al observed children viewing violent films and found children showed less emotional response suggesting desensitisation giving the theory validity. Those who are desensitised are more likely to see anti-social behaviour as normal therefore are more likely to engage in it. Males may expose themselves to more violence e.g. in media and sport, therefore more likely to become desensitised, supported by UK crime statistics which have found men more likely to engage in violence than women. Ethical concerns are raised as children were exposed to violent films which could have been distressing or caused further desensitisation. The study was conducted in laboratory conditions therefore lacks external validity and cannot provide conclusive evidence that media desensitisation links to real world desensitisation.

St. Helena, a British colony, had TV introduced for the first time and its effects were observed. No significant rise was found in anti-social behaviour after its introduction suggesting TV has little effect in general. However, it is unclear what the long term effects may be as the children were not used to TV therefore may not have found it interesting. A methodological problem is assuming the impact of TV would be direct, a long term observation would have been better suited. If changes did occur later in life it may be due to other extraneous variables, highlighting the difficulty in measuring effects of the media. 

A methodological weakness in media research is most studies are conducted in laboratory settings. Under these conditions participants may show demand characteristics as they are aware they are being observed, and lacks ecological validity as they are not representative of a real life setting. However, research may have real life application for example the 9pm watershed, this helps to limit anti-social behaviour seen by children as research has found evidence it may influence behaviour.