Media Influences on Anti Social Behaviour

Psychology Media influences on Anti social behaviour Jordan Jones

Outline 2 or more explanations of media influences on anti social behaviour

The media consists of magazines, newspapers, television, internet, music, films etc. the media can have a big influence on the way in which people behave. Some people are influenced by what they hear and see.

There are 4 ways in which media can influence our behaviour:

1. Through imitation

2. Cognitive Priming

3. Disinhibition

4. Desensitisation

The 2 explanations of media influences that I am going to outline are Imitation and Desensitisation.

Imitation is when people copy what they have seen. We know from Banduras bobo dolls study that children copy what they see. There is evidence to show that copy cat crimes have occurred after aggressive acts of violence have been shown on television and in films. People are more likely to copy people we admire who are in power and are rewarded for aggression. Video games also influence people’s behaviour and can lead to copy cat crimes such as the Columbine High school shootings in Colorado. Two teenagers shot dead 12 class mates and a teacher before then killing themselves. When the murders were investigated they found a recording which stated that the murders would be just like the ones in their favourite video game DOOM. This game was a highly violent game use in training of US marines. Violent video games can sometimes been seen to be more harmful than watching violence on television as in a video game you are the killer, they are more realistic. They often require the player to identify with the aggressor.

Although there is evidence to support this theory of copy cat learning there are criticisms such as lots of people played this game Doom but didn’t kill any one. Also the age of the boys means that they may have high levels of testosterone as they were 17-18 years old. This research also doesn’t explain aggression in all people, what about the aggressive people who don’t play the game?

This research is also only correlational research.

Desensitisation

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