The Depiction of Violence in the Media and its Effects on Youth

The Depiction of Violence in the Media and its Effects on Youth
Gunfights, bombs, professional wrestling, and car chases mare all depicted on television and in video games on a day-to-day basis. Most video games involve fighting an opponent of some kind and arcade games often have you shoot the “bad guys”. These are all games geared to towards adolescents and pre-adolescents who are quite impressionable. The link between violence in media, games and music and both short term and long-term increases in aggression is indisputable. (Anderson 1).
Media violence can lead to actual violence due to the aggressive scripts it primes and the arousal it causes (Anderson 1). Short term aggression happens while the priming is occurring; long term aggression is caused when the aggressive scripts are the most easily available. Desensitization also plays a part in long term aggression. Desensitization occurs when a person stops having the normal negative emotional responses to violence usually due to having seen it many times (Anderson 1). Long term aggression is characterized by actions such as spousal abuse and constant verbal aggression and threats. There is little known on how media violence affects the violent crimes of rape and homicide because they are so rare.
Children learn by imitation: of their parents, teachers, friends, and the media they are exposed to. In a study in Finland children were shown either a violent or a non-violent film. The observers, who didn’t know which children, had viewed which video watched them play together and rated their violence level in play. The children who watched the violent film were far more likely to physically assault (hit, kick) another child then the children who had not been shown the film. (Anderson 5). A similar study was done with slightly older boys. Half of the boys watched a violent film and half didn’t. Then they played a hockey game and double blind observers counted the number of physical assaults (hitting, shoving, kneeing, tripping) each child performed. The children who watched the violent movie were more likely to be aggressive and to physically assault the other team than those who hadn’t seen the film, especially when a trigger from the movie (a walkie-talkie) was carried by the referee. (Anderson 5) These studies show that children are indeed influenced by violent media and it can lead to physical aggression in their day-to-day lives without them even knowing it. Considering the amount of violence on television and in video games these days this is very troubling.
Media violence can lead to aggression which can lead to conflict and conflict can lead to war. If two leaders are both aggressive people who don’t want to back down and want to fight then there will be a war. While the reasons behind war are usually politics, religion, and predisposition the leaders may be more aggressive, and therefore more likely to go to war, if they were exposed to media violence as children. The relation of media to violence and aggression is large and even for the more violent forms of assault the findings are as statistically significant as those linking aspirin to preventing heart attacks. (Anderson 1)
In order to save a life we need to stop showing our children that violence is okay. We need to stop turning a blind eye to violence in the media especially in children’s games, movies, and television shows. If this callous view of hurt and death that is so often portrayed by them were erased then there would be less desensitization and aggressive scripts would not be as accessible. This would cause the levels of violence in the real world to go down. Aggression and violence lead to conflicts in which people die. Reducing violence helps reduce conflict and death.

Works Cited
Craig A. Anderson, Leonard Berkowitz, Edward Donnerstein, L. Rowell Huesmann, James D. Johnson, Daniel Linz, Neil M. Malamuth, and Ellen Wartella. The Influence of Media Violence on Youth. American Psychological Society. December 2003.

Soldiers=Instruments for harm?

Blog 3 Nicole Saint Paul

Regardless of our age or profession we all have the tendency to obey authority. In childhood we are taught to respect our elders. We are also taught to be obedient to people with visual credibility. What I mean when I say ‘visual credibility’ is when we perceive that a person has credibility by what they are wearing. Doctors wear lab coats, lawyers wear high profiled suits, and police officers wear uniforms. The same cognition occurs when we listen to our superiors. Soldiers are taught to listen to those with a higher rank without question. This is important to realize because authority can be a harmful tool in a society where obeying is important; innocents have died as a result of strict obedience.

The 1968 My Lai Massacre was a result of the obedience to authority theory (Time). Early one morning first Lieutenant William Laws Calley Jr. ordered his men into My Lai, Viet Cong with the orders of destroying the small hamlet (Time). It took them less than 20 minutes to kill approximately 100 men, women and children along with their homes and livestock (Time). Twenty-six soldiers, including Calley (charged with murder), were investigated after the murders (Time).

Social psychology can explain why this happened. Obedience to authority is a strong power over people. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist, said, “It is ironic that the virtues of loyalty, discipline, and self-sacrifice that we value so highly in the individual are the very properties that create destructive organizational engines of war and bind men to malevolent systems of authority,” (Milgram). Milgram describes four specific reasons as to why people willingly obey authority, but admit to little or no responsibility for their negative actions. His reasons include that people obey due to the feeling that it is their duty, they find it to be difficult to disobedient, they feel that their behavior is useful to society, and they remember that they were raised in a society where obedience is important (Milgram).

Milgram conducted an experiment where he tested his theory about the effects of obedience and authority:

His hypothesis: “When an authority figure gives normal people instructions to do something that might hurt another person, some of them will obey.” This hypothesis turned out to be true. His experiment consisted of ‘teachers’- the unknowing subjects and ‘learners’-actors on a tape recorder. The ‘teachers’ were told that the study was exploring the effects of punishment (incorrect responses) on learning behaviors. They were then told that for every incorrect response they should administer an electric shock to the ‘learner’ with increasing intensity (15-450 volts). The ‘learner’/actor would be in another room and pretend he was receiving the shock, thus screaming in agonizing pain. “At 330 volts [the ‘learner’] made no response at all. Still the experiment ordered the teacher to continue asking questions and delivering shocks.” Many people got upset and agitated while administering the shocks, yet they continued. Out of 40 participants 25 went all the way to 450 volts, and anyone who continued above 330 always went to 450. (Kalat) .Sixty-three percent of the "teachers" obeyed orders to punish the learner to the very end of the 450-volt scale! No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts! (Kalat).

In conclusion even smart, tough soldiers are susceptible to the obedience-authority theory by Milgram. Milgram proves that, “Man feels responsible to the authority directing him but feels no responsibility for the content of his actions that the authority prescribes;” which explains that people feel like instruments for carry out others’ demands (Milgram). Soldiers are taught to obey their superiors and that needs to be limited. Without limits another My Lai Massacre could possible happen. Civilians do not deserve to die because of a social psychological issue. We can save many lives if the military places limits on obedience to authority; soldiers can be obedient without being naïve, unethical or inhumane. Even instruments like computers have limits, its time our soldiers do too!

Work Cited:

Kalat, James W. Introduction to Psychology. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning,

Inc., 2008. (520-522).

-Has the research on Milgram’s book below in his words.

Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.,

1974.

Nation: The My Lai Massacre. Time Magazine. 28, Nov. 1969. Web. 11 Dec. 2009.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840403,00.html

Picture: http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/ARP/ARP108/drill-sergeant_~sergeant.jpg

War as a Sterotyped Action

War as a stereotyped action
The "stereotyped action" is an action that is repeated multiple times by a person in order to fulfill some form of inner need or desire. It is seen many times in cases of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and other mental illnesses. The action is preformed either unknowingly by the person or under full conscious direction in order to gain some form of mental or physical reward, although that reward is never achieved. Consequently, the act of doing something repeatedly and expecting a purely different result is accepted by many psychologists as insanity. Throughout human history a single stereotyped action has defined and shaped human existence. War.
Over and over again humanity has fought in countless wars. From the first inter-tribe wars our ancestors fought, to the modern "total war" mentality and large scale conflicts that engulf entire countries in battle. From news coverage, documentaries, and firsthand accounts, people have grown knowledgeable about the true horrors of war and the wreckage it leaves behind. War is often described as a tragedy, a horrific display of mankind's brutality, or a dark stain in the course of human history. So why is it that this action is repeated multiple times in multiple places across the globe? The consequences of war are well known and many people detest the idea of so much guaranteed loss for so little possible gain. Simple compromise may have avoided many of these altercations. Why do people always expect a different outcome when engaging war? The simple answer is insanity.
If it is so hard to believe that humanity as a whole can be insane, then look at smaller cases of the stereotyped action in people. Nail biting affects millions of people across the world; a person constantly whittles down their nail until it is to a point where the person feels mentally stable again. Although nail biting is a small illness, it still shows that one small mental trait can be shared by millions upon millions of people, even though there may be no contact between the individuals. War is only a larger scale nail biting phenomenon. It is an action which humans repeat, always expecting some form of liberation, justice, or wealth.
In the end it is always the same however. People will have asked why a war ever happened, land is made uninhabitable, and, as of less than 200 years ago, mental illnesses such as shell-shock become a soldier's standard (http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/shellshock.htm). If people know what is going to happen because of war and know the price of fighting possibly outweighing the rewards, why does it even occur at all? Why is this stereotyped action taking over rational human thought? The simple answer is, insanity.

References:
~Hart, Bernard. The Psychology of Insanity. Toronto, Canada: The Macmillan Co., 1916.
~Web M.D, "Nail-Biting - Topic Overview". Healthwise. 9/26/2009 .
~http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/shellshock.htm