When it comes to media violence and aggressive thoughts, it is public knowledge or “talk” that watching, listening, or engaging in anything relative to violence would lead to aggressive behavior. We have seen this be talked about for years through news channels, blogs, and social media. With claims like “if your child plays violate video games, they will be aggressive in the future” or even older claims such as “if your child listens to rock, they will be aggressive”. For example, the textbook references a study from Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2007 mentioning that people who are exposed to a violent TV clip are more likely to think aggressive thoughts. (Gruman et al., 2016). Of course, there are more factors and variables involved in whether a child will grow up to have aggressive thoughts or show aggressive behaviors, such as their environment, and temperament. But the textbook does support the idea of consuming media violence and the aggressive thoughts that could stem from it.
According to Berkowitz’s (1984) neoassociationistic model of media priming, the presence of something representing or creating violates would increase the likelihood that one would have aggressive thoughts (Gruman et al., 2016). This relates to the idea of Network models of memory because there becomes a connection in our memory, associating these together. The example used in the textbook was that node in our memory links “gun” with “crime” so these could affect our behavior when fired.
My question is, currently is there still a correlation between media violence and aggressive thoughts or even behavior? Could it change in the future? The reason I came to this question is because of the exposure to media violence everyone gets (or has access to) with social media. With platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, where it doesn’t take much to see traumatic and inappropriate images and videos, many people are aware that they have become desensitized to violent imagery. For many, scrolling through their feed and seeing violent media wouldn’t really insight a reaction out of them or disrupt their day-to-day routine. We are also living in a time where hearing about violent acts, from news channels, social media, and even our community, is so common it many believe it is our “norm” now. So, the question rises, when hearing about and seeing so many violate acts, do the nodes in your memory change? For example, can the node for “gun” change from a link to “crime” to a link to “normal”? Is this possible?
The textbook covers this question by referencing experiences from Drabman and Thomas (1974), and Engelhardt, Bartholow, Kerr, & Bushman (2011). Many of these experiments conclude that “Desensitization to violence increases people’s tolerance of violence and decreases their motivation not to act aggressively, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will act violently” (Gruman et al., 2016). And when continuing my own research into this topic, I found the article Emotional Desensitization to Violence Contributes to Adolescents’ Violent Behavior, by Mrug, Madan, and Windle. This article is another experiment that shows the effect of exposure to violence and how it can be linked with emotional desensitization, especially in adolescents. They found that “emotional desensitization to violence in early adolescence contributes to serious violence in late adolescence” (Mrug et al., 2016). These experiments answer my question about the present, but I still wonder if this can change in the future.
Unfortunately, it is typical for people, especially heavy social media users, and adolescents, to find something violent, disturbing, or heartbreaking while scrolling through their feeds. Some may even interact with the post, like, comment, or even repost it. So, I wonder if all this media violence exposure could affect how we see violence, and how we react to it and engage with it. Based on research from the textbook and my own findings; desensitization will only lead to more aggressive thoughts and behaviors. Meaning if the node for “gun” gets linked to “normal”, in our society, it will still be attached to “crime”, so increased aggression may be due to “normal”, and “crime” inherently being linked together. But I still wonder if so, much desensitization could remove the crime entirely and just have “normal” as our main link. Is this possible? What could happen to get our society there?
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications, Incorporated
Mrug S, Madan A, Windle M. Emotional Desensitization to Violence Contributes to Adolescents’ Violent Behavior. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2016 Jan;44(1):75-86. doi: 10.1007/s10802-015-9986-x. PMID: 25684447; PMCID: PMC4539292.