Effects of Television Violence on Expectations of Other's Aggression

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Abstract
After exposure to either an aggressive or nonaggressive television program, third and fifth grade boys and girls heard descriptions of nine conflict situations and were asked (a) to predict how the average child would react in such a situation and (b) to indicate the behavior they believed to be most morally correct. As predicted, children who had seen the aggressive film were significantly more likely to choose aggressive responses as being normative than were children exposed to the control film. Beliefs about the moral correctness of aggression, however, were not reliably influenced by film condition. Older children were found to regard aggressive responses to conflict as more commonplace than did younger children, and in accordance with sex-role stereotypes, males more frequently than females suggested that aggressive reactions were morally correct.

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