Sociology of the Arts. Victoria D. Alexander

Illustration 3.2 Film Poster for Natural Born Killers (1994). A bad influence?

      (Author’s collection; photo by author.)

      In the real‐life aggression situation, an experimenter, who served as the model, punched a five‐foot‐tall “Bobo doll” and then performed the following distinctively aggressive acts:

      The model sat on the Bobo doll and punched it repeatedly in the nose. The Model then raised the Bobo doll and pummeled it on the head with a mallet. Following the mallet aggression, the model tossed the doll up in the air aggressively and kicked it about the room. This sequence of physically aggressive acts was repeated…interspersed with verbally aggressive responses such as, “Sock him in the nose”…“Hit him down”…“Throw him in the air”…“Kick him”…and “Pow” (p. 4–5).

      For the human film situation, the same experimenters were filmed exhibiting the same behavior as in the real‐life situation. In the “cartoon” situation, a female experimenter dressed as a black cat performed the same behaviors as above, “except that the cat’s movements were characteristically feline,” (p. 5) and the verbal aggression was articulated in a high, squeaky voice.

      After viewing the aggression (or not, in the case of the control group), the children were frustrated (toys were taken away) and they were taken into a room with a different variety of toys including a three‐foot tall Bobo doll, a mallet, guns, and some “non‐aggressive toys” like teddy bears. Their behavior was coded for its level of aggression. The researchers found that all three experimental conditions provoked levels of aggression higher than that found in the control condition. Indeed, 88 percent of the subjects who saw human aggression, whether live or on film, exhibited some degree of imitative aggression, as did 79 percent of the subjects viewing the cartoon. In addition, boys behaved more aggressively than did girls. Importantly, there were no statistical differences between the amount of violence in children exposed to the real life and the human film situations. The authors concluded, “The finding that children modeled their behavior to some extent after the film characters suggests that pictorial mass media, particularly television, may serve as an important source of social behavior” (p. 9).

      This experiment and similar ones that followed have been extensively evaluated. In terms of its “internal validity”—the accuracy, reliability and validity of its procedures and measurements—this study holds up well. Subjects were assigned to experimental conditions in a way that rendered the four groups comparable, and efforts were made to minimize differences from child to child that were not part of the experimental design. Statistical analysis was applied, demonstrating that the differences found were due to actual differences, not random error. However, as Felson (1996) points out, the aggressive behavior found in experiments may be a “sponsor effect” (where subjects assume that experimenters who show violent fare condone it) or evidence of experimenter bias (where compliant subjects try to help out the experimenter) rather than a true “modeling effect.”

      The experiment comes under more fire in terms of its “external validity”—how well its lessons might be related to real life. The first question is whether the study measures genuine violence; aggression usually denotes a behavior with the intent to injure a person (Bandura, Ross, and Ross point this out themselves). The Bobo doll, also known as a “Punchy Clown,” is an inflatable toy resembling an overgrown, fat bowling pin with a protruding red nose. It has a round, weighted bottom, so that when it is tipped over, it rights itself immediately. In other words, it is designed to be a punching bag! So, the “violence” measured was directed toward an inanimate object, not a person, and did not damage the toy, which in fact was devised for aggressive play.

      We can also ask if the aggression exhibited by the children might simply be a short‐term response, whether this response would obtain in the longer term, and whether it would transfer to social situations or to more serious aggressive acts. While a large number of experiments have supported the findings of Bandura, Ross, and Ross, other studies have not found a link between televised aggression and subsequent behavior. A few studies have even suggested that televised violence can act as a safety valve for aggressive individuals, helping them let off steam. However, there is continued debate over these studies and how effectively they actually measure each aspect of the issue (Ferguson and Savage, 2012).

Paik and Comstock (1994) performed a meta‐analysis on 217 studies of television and antisocial behavior, from both psychology and sociology, since 1960. A “meta‐analysis” is a quantitative method which allows researchers to aggregate findings from multiple studies in order to draw stronger conclusions than would be possible for each study alone. Their key finding is that there is a highly significant, positive association between television violence and antisocial behavior, when antisocial behavior is broadly measured (including aggression towards toys or objects).

      Paik and Comstock’s work demonstrates that experimental studies show a stronger magnitude of effects than those based on surveys, and laboratory experiments greater effects than field experiments or “time‐series studies” (which examine naturally occurring situations), but all types of studies showed positive effects in their aggregated analysis. They also found that cartoon violence and fantasy violence had stronger effects on antisocial behavior than realistic‐fictional or newscast violence, a finding which might be related to the finding that preschool subjects (who watch more cartoons) demonstrate higher levels of antisocial behavior than adult subjects. Effects were highest in magnitude when antisocial behavior was measured as aggression towards objects and intermediate when measured as verbal aggression. It is notable that the lowest magnitude effects were shown for violence towards persons and criminal behavior.

Felson (1996) argues that violent behavior may be associated with media consumption, but that the violence stems from other sources. This is a “problem of spurious correlation,” where a third variable (such as abusive or neglectful parents) is a causal factor in both of the measured variables (media violence and violent behavior). Further, as Ferguson and Savage (2012) argue, cross‐sectional studies (surveys that look at one point in time) that find more aggressive individuals associated with more violent media fare lack a “temporal order.” That is, it is not clear which comes first. In addition, Felson notes that audiences are likely to choose materials that match their values and interests. This “selective exposure” provides an alternative interpretation of any correlation between violent audiences and violent television.²

      Further, the reviews by Felson and by Ferguson and Savage point out that the story line of most television shows suggests that “crime doesn’t pay” and criminals are punished in the end; indeed, consequences for illegitimate violence on television are greater than they are in real life. This suggests that if viewers are sensitive to the moral of the story, television violence might reduce real‐life violence (an idea which was supported in Paik and Comstock’s meta‐analysis). Overall, the review articles find that many studies lack validity as they suffer from numerous problems with measurement, data, and statistical models. A meta‐analysis finds strength in numbers and can demonstrate differential effects of different kinds of measurement of key variables. But it is only as good as its constituent analyses. Ferguson and Savage state that demonstrated effects of televised violence range