MEDIA EFFECTS ON BEHAVIOR: A SHORT HISTORY
In 1929, films became the first target of scholarly research into the possible effects of media on the morals and actions of children. The results, as might be expected by now, were inconclusive.
Growing Public Concern
In the 1940s, researchers turned their attention to the potential effects that radio might have on politics. Louisiana Governor Huey Long’s firebrand radio speeches and President Roosevelt’s fireside chats helped jump start the curiosity. The results suggested that the media actually had little direct effect on political decision-making. Instead, personal influence was more important, and individuals called “opinion leaders” were thought to be more important in the decision-making process.
In the 1950s, the research spotlight turned to the potentially negative effects that heavy TV viewing might have on children. A British study concluded that TV did have an impact on children’s values and perceptions of the world, while a US study found that as children got older, heavy TV viewing was associated with lower IQ scores and unsatisfactory social relationships.
During the 1960s, a congressional subcommittee investigating the causes and prevention of violence concluded that constant viewing of violent behavior on TV might cause antisocial behavior among young people. A study ordered by President Johnson concluded that (a) more definitive research in this area was needed, and (b) that a “constant diet of violent behavior on television had an adverse effect on human character and attitudes.” During the same period, a presidential commission studying obscenity and its effects concluded that all laws prohibiting the distribution of pornographic materials be repealed.
TV Violence
In 1972, and again in 1982, federally funded research projects determined that exposure to TV violence could increase the probability of antisocial behavior and that there was a causal link between TV violence viewing and real-life aggressive behavior.
The 1990s saw the start of program advisories, which warned TV viewers of upcoming programs that featured strong language, violence, or sexual content. The Telecommunication Act of 1996 also took on the TV violence problem with the introduction of the V-Chip, a device that could electronically block out programs that were unsuitable for younger viewers. The success of this new technology depended on creating a new program rating system, and the TV and cable industries responded (after a failed first attempt) with a detailed content warning system patterned after the MPAA film ratings.
THE IMPACT OF TELEVISED VIOLENCE
Survey Results: Though it is difficult to summarize decades of surveys, this conclusion may come closest to being the most representative, “the evidence to date indicates that there is a significant correlation between the viewing of violent television programs and aggressive behavior in day-to-day life.” Nevertheless, a relationship is not necessarily evidence of a cause and effect.
In 1986, a five-country panel study came to varying conclusions about the effects on children of viewing TV violence and their later aggressive behavioral tendencies. The panel did, however, agree on two major areas:
. the relationship between the viewing of violence and aggressive behavior tends to be weak
. there was a pattern of circularity in causation. Viewing violent TV caused some children to become more aggressive, and being aggressive caused them to watch more violent TV
Experimental Results: The Catharsis vs. Stimulation Debate
Two mainstream avenues to explore the impact of media violence on audiences have been attempted. The first is from the Aristotelian theory of catharsis. This theory holds that viewing scenes of aggression can actually purge the viewer’s own aggressive feelings. The second approach, stimulation theory, holds just the opposite view and suggests that seeing scenes of violence will actually stimulate an individual to behave more violently afterward. The results of numerous studies in these areas conclude that watching media violence does tend to stimulate aggressive behavior, while on the other hand, there is little empirical evidence for catharsis.
Bandura’s Experiment
A series of experiments conducted by psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1960s indicated that, in fact, film and TV just might teach aggressive behavior in children. Bandura’s research team found that children who had just finished watching violent content on TV or film were much more likely to be aggressive in follow up situations than were children who had not been exposed to TV violence.
Complicating Factors
As “conclusive” as reports from laboratory experiments may sound, there are many complicating factors that could be influencing the outcome; these factors could include the experimental setting itself, participant age and sex, length and type of violent media content, who the subject watches the film with and what their reactions are, social class, family history, economic background and so on. Finally, the reactions of other people to the same media exposure can directly influence a viewer’s the potential for aggressive behavior.
Field Experiments: Although people in field experiments are studied in their natural environments, and thus react more naturally than in a lab setting, they’re also exposed to new, outside influences that may affect results.
Though results vary, surveys, panel studies, lab research studies, and field experiments all tend to support the notion that violent TV viewing may foster aggressive behavior in some viewers.
What Can We Conclude?
Though no one study or group of studies can make any definitive conclusion, a consistent thread seems to run through most experiments about watching TV violence and aggressive behavior. Taken as a whole, these results encourage a tentative acceptance of the proposition that watching violence on television increases aggressiveness on the part of at least some viewers. Yet while the effects might be small, they are not necessarily trivial.
ENCOURAGING PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR
While most media research has concentrated on investigating the potential negative effects of media consumption by some people, some scholars began examining the positive effects the media might have on people. These effects, called prosocial behavior, can include actions such as cooperation, sharing, self-control, and helping.
Developing Self-control
Lab experiments have shown that films and TV programs can affect a young child’s self-control.
Cooperation, Sharing, and Helping
Experiments here show that children are willing to imitate cooperative, generous, and helping behavior, which they’ve seen portrayed in a film or on television programs.
Survey Data
Though survey data on prosocial media effects are scarce, what there is suggests that children do perceive prosocial messages incorporated into a film or television program. However, two survey studies have found little relationship between viewing prosocial messages and actually transferring those actions into everyday behavior.
OTHER BEHAVIORAL EFFECTS
Political Behavior
Studies of Voter Turnout: Voter turnout has dropped continually since 1964, but there is little, if any, conclusive data to link that fact with the media. But some relationships are notable; for example, data from presidential elections from 1960-1976 indicate that the frequency of reading a newspaper was strongly related to voter turnout, but radio and television exposure were not.
Negative political advertising does not seem to have much of an effect on voters above reinforcing already polarized views on candidates and issues. The research shows, from the candidate's perspective, that negative political advertising is worth any potential backlash IF that person is behind in the polls. Candidates have come from far behind to win elections thanks to some really nasty advertisements. If, however, the candidate is way ahead in the polls, any kind of negative advertising often has a "boomerang" effect for the the leading candidate (voters don't like the heavy favorite picking on the underdog-- Americans love the "underdog" story).
Effects of the Mass Media on Voter Choice: When it comes to choosing a candidate to vote for, the mass media functions along with many other factors, both social and psychological, to affect a person’s choice. Some generalizations can, however, be put forward. First, conversion, switching your vote from one political party to another, is unlikely to result from simple media exposure since it’s difficult for the media to persuade someone whose mind is already made up, and roughly 2/3 of voters have made up their minds before the campaigns even begin. Far more common are two effects that have a direct bearing on voter choice:
. reinforcement strengthening or support of existing attitudes and opinions
. crystallization sharpening and elaboration of vaguely held attitudes or predispositions
If a person approaches a campaign undecided or neutral, then crystallization is likely to occur. If the person has already made up his or her mind, then reinforcement will probably take place.
A key factor in winning any election is to keep the party faithful loyal (reinforcement) and to persuade enough of the undecided people to vote for your side (crystallization) in order to win.
Thus, even though widespread conversion is not usually seen, the media are still influential. Yet
these effects are generally attributable to national and perhaps even state wide elections; other studies indicate, however, that newspapers may heavily influence the outcome of local elections.
The Debates: Research into the effects of presidential debates suggests that they’ve actually had little effect other than reinforcing previously held opinions on the candidates. That said, debates may affect the choice of previously undecided or neutral voters; though the numbers may be small, it’s worth remembering that the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election was one by less than 1/10 of one percent of the total vote. The principal effect of presidential debates is to reinforce rather than shift voter attitudes. TV debates crystallize opinion far more often than they convert.
Television and the Political Behavior of Politicians: TV has clearly affected the political behavior of politicians and political campaigns. Look at the changes politicians have adopted since the advent of TV into the political arena:
. nominating conventions are scheduled to suit TV prime time, and thereby hopefully get
viewers and gain favorable public opinion
. television has dramatically increased the cost of campaigning
. television has become the medium around which most campaigns are organized
. campaign staffs now routinely include TV consultants and image makers
Effects of Obscenity and Pornography
This area of media content has had far fewer research studies than that of the media’s effects on children or politics. In the 1960s, a presidential committee suggested:
. most pornography consumers were middle class, middle-age men
. no evidence that viewing pornography was related to antisocial or deviant behavior
. that pornographic material served a positive function in some healthy, sexual relationships
. that all laws against distributing pornography be repealed
In 1970, the Nixon administration repudiated their findings, and now that study has largely since been ignored.
In 1984, a new commission began re-examining the effects pornography might have on the public. Two years later, and surrounded by political considerations, the commission concluded that pornography, particularly violent pornography, was harmful and that its distribution should be curtailed. More recent studies have found that sexual arousal might be linked to subsequent aggressive behavior if other outlets for release are not available. In addition, other studies found a disturbing link between exposure to pornography and feelings of callousness toward women.
RESEARCH ON THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF THE INTERNET
Obviously, studies about the effect of the Internet on the public have only recently begun; that said, three major areas of study have already developed:
The impact of Internet use on TV viewing
Early studies suggested that an increased use of the Internet generally comes at the expense of decreased television viewing. What happened instead, however, is that people today (in 2011) watch MORE television than ever before. The Internet didn't lead to a decrease in TV viewing, it led to an increase.
The relationship between Internet use and social involvement
Several early studies have given contradictory results. As such, it’s too early to conclude how, or even if, heavy Internet usage affects one’s involvement with personal or social relationships.
Internet addiction
As above, little definitive research yet exists. However, psychologists have identified three characteristics of any addiction:
1) increased tolerance,
2)loss of control, and
3) withdrawal.
COMMUNICATION IN THE FUTURE: SOCIAL IMPACT
Privacy
While the advent of new communication technology and the explosion of harvesting personal information about us have obviously contributed to our own benefit as well as society’s, there are just as many troubling issues all that information exchange raises. One of the biggest issues is our increasing loss of privacy in the area of e-mails, cell phones, medical records, shopping habits, financial information, and so on. Information is getting to be uncomfortably easy to find and access through centralized computer databases.
Fragmentation and Isolation
Mass media are increasingly serving the needs of more specialized audiences, thus directing individuals toward more selective content exposure. If this trend continues, it could result into smaller and smaller interest groups with little in common with the rest of society. This phenomena has been labeled the cocoon effect by sociologists. This effect suggests that people surround themselves with only the political and social information that they find comforting, appealing, or acceptable. Moreover, as telecommuting becomes more popular, more people will stay at home. Already the computer allows consumers to work, bank, shop, and be entertained without leaving the confines of your family room. What might happen if people begin to overly distance themselves from the reality of the outside world?
Overload in the Information Society
One of the central problems for 21st Century citizens may well be how they manage the vastly increasing flood of news, information, and entertainment available to them. It’s likely that those who succeed in the future will be the ones who can maximize the efficiency of their information-seeking behavior.
Escape
The possibility of people immersing themselves in the world of mass media and tuning out of the real world has always been a concern, but it just didn’t happen that often or with any significant numbers of people. Today, however, with the advent and advances in the areas of HDTV, the Internet, 3D technology, and role playing games, those fears have again resurfaced, and this time perhaps, with considerably more likelihood of becoming realized.
PALO ALTO, Calif. — PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL, one of the nation’s most prestigious public secondary schools, is sandwiched between two stark and illusory paths. Across the street to the west, Stanford University beckons as the platonic ideal, a symbol of the road to Google, the White House, the mansion on the hill. To the east, across a bike trail, are the railroad tracks where three boys from the school district have killed themselves this year.
Suicide clusters are relatively rare, accounting for about 5 percent of teenage suicides. Startlingly, this year’s is the second contagion to visit this city. Five students or recent graduates of the district’s other high school, Gunn High School, killed themselves beginning in 2009.
Experts say such clusters typically occur when suicide takes hold as a viable coping mechanism — as a deadly, irrational fashion. But that hasn’t stopped this community from soul searching: Does a culture of hyperachievement deserve any blame for this cluster?
The answer is complex, bordering on the contradictory: No, the pressure to succeed is not unique, nor does it cause a suicide cluster in itself, but the intense reflection underway here has unearthed a sobering reality about how Silicon Valley’s culture of best in class is playing out in the schools.
In addition to whatever overt pressure students feel to succeed, that culture is intensified by something more insidious: a kind of doublespeak from parents and administrators. They often use all the right language about wanting students to be happy, healthy and resilient — a veritable “script,” said Madeline Levine, a Bay Area psychologist who treats depressed, anxious and suicidal tech-industry executives, workers and their children.
“They say, ‘All I care about is that you’re happy,’ and then the kid walks in the door and the first question is, ‘How did you do on the math test?’ ” Ms. Levine said. “The giveaways are so unbelievably clear.”
Denise Pope, an education expert at Stanford, calls this gulf between what people say and what they mean “the hidden message of parenting.”
But here, and in lots of other ultrahigh-achieving communities and schools, Ms. Pope said that children are picking through the static to hear the overriding message that only the best will do — in grades, test scores, sports, art, college. “In everything,” she said.
“I hear students tell me that if I don’t get into X, Y, Z college, I’ll wind up flipping burgers at McDonald’s,” said Ms. Pope, who is working with Ms. Levine to counsel at the high schools.
Ms. Pope said that wrongheaded idea becomes an emotional and physiological threat when multiplied by at least three other factors: technology that keeps teens working and socializing late at night, depriving them of essential rest; growing obligations from test-prep classes and extracurricular activities; and parents too busy to participate in activities with their families.
“We are not teenagers,” Carolyn Walworth, a junior at Palo Alto High School, wrote in an editorial in the local paper in response to the suicides. She described students as “lifeless bodies in a system that breeds competition” and wrote of going to the emergency room to deal with stress, missed periods and having “a panic attack in the middle of a 30-person class and be forced to remain still.”
There has been lots of talk in the community about what to do, she wrote, but action has not followed. (The district is providing counseling services, offering a suicide-prevention kit and urging teachers to limit homework hours.)
“Please, no more endless discussions about what exactly it is that is wrong with our schools, and, above all, no more empty promises,” she wrote, and noted: “We are the product of a generation of Palo Altans that so desperately wants us to succeed but does not understand our needs.”
THIS curious idea of a rhetorical divide came up in a number of recent discussions with parents and their children. In one conversation about the suicides, a mother at a Bay Area school in a similarly high-achieving community told me how little pressure she puts on her teens and noted by way of an anecdote how she had succeeded: Her daughter, she proudly recounted, was so well balanced that she decided last year not to go to the best college she got into but, rather, the school that best fit her passions. The school was Vassar.
In this subtle linguistic slip, Vassar qualified as a second-rate school.
Esther Wojcicki, the teacher who oversees the Palo Alto High School newspaper, lamented the competitive environment but noted seconds later that the school paper had just won a “Gold Crown” award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and that the two dozen students sitting at computer terminals at 4 p.m. that day were thrilled to stay until 9 p.m. to put out the school magazine because they have so much fun doing it.
Alan Eagle, a sales director at Google whose 17-year-old son, William, is a junior at Gunn, was frank about the distance between what he tells his son and what he means.
“I can say all I want that it doesn’t matter where my son goes to college,” Mr. Eagle told me. But “I’m sure that as much as I preach that, I’m not being 100 percent authentic and frank.”
He added: “I personally went to Dartmouth and it did help. I look at the economy, the difference between haves and have-nots, and I believe a college education is critical.”
And a rich high school experience, too. A few minutes later, while acknowledging that his son had given up playing on the basketball team to study more, Mr. Eagle noted that “at least he’s still got track.”
Glenn McGee, the district’s superintendent, also seemed to struggle to walk the line between celebrating the exceptional nature of this area while urging students to relax. Sitting in his office and looking across the street at the Stanford campus, he mourned the fact that some parents feel that such a school is the only acceptable outcome.
“In many cases, people have made a big sacrifice to live in this community,” Dr. McGee said, referring to exorbitant housing costs (the median housing price last year was $3.3 million, making it the fourth most-expensive ZIP code in the country, according to Richard Florida, an academic who studies demographic trends). Characterizing the attitude of many parents, Dr. McGee said, “To be blunt, what is my return on investment?”
“My job is not to get you into Stanford,” he said he tells parents and students. “It’s to teach them to learn how to learn, to think, to work together — learn how to explore, collaborate, learn to be curious and creative.”
Some parents hear it, he said, but “a lot of families and parents don’t hear the message and say: compete and compete.”
Dr. McGee said he had interviewed 300 students and found that half would be “really embarrassed” to tell their friends they got a B. But the truth is that it’s awfully hard to be the best here, given the curve: The SAT scores are so high on average that a student who finishes in the 75th percentile in the district has a 2,200, the 99th percentile in general for college-bound seniors.
Soon after lamenting the pressure, Dr. McGee raved about a student who was part of a math team that finished first in January in a national competition, and about the new performing arts center under construction, and about the coming $24 million athletic facility funded by a private family foundation.
And why wouldn’t he rave? Why not be thrilled by achievement?
Because the bar for academic success here has become so high that solid performance can feel mediocre.
It puts enormous pressure on a school, or a community, when such consistent, across-the-board greatness becomes a baseline of sorts — what Mr. Eagle described as a culture of “not just excellence but uber-excellence.”
Perhaps that explains some of the doublespeak: Parents are searching for language to encourage their children, even push them, but not crush them.
One solution, said Ms. Pope of Stanford, is “downtime, playtime, family time.” For parents, too. In other words: Take a leap of faith (well supported by science) that downtime will lead to a healthier perspective.
Dr. Morton Silverman, a psychiatrist and senior science adviser to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, suggested that another answer is recognizing that the doublespeak also betrays a sense of terror about the future among both students and parents.
With the economy in flux and the income gap growing, parents don’t see a clear path anymore to financial stability — even here, maybe especially here, where things move fast and competition is fierce. In addition, many of the fortunes made here have been based on creating things that destabilize traditional businesses and their workers.
So confront the new realities, Dr. Silverman suggested, urging parents to say something like: “I can’t tell you which path to take or how to get there, but I will support you,” he said. “I’m here to back you up.”
It’s a hard message to hear in a can-do place like this.
Walking near the train tracks where the children laid themselves down, Dr. McGee said this community, if any, should have answers.
“Can we put sensors up there?” he mused quietly to me, maybe to alert the train operators that someone has climbed onto the tracks. “This is Silicon Valley. There ought to be something we can do.”
