Abstract

The present study assessed a possible causal relationship between television violence and social perceptions of crime and aggressive behaviors. It was purposed that participants with prolonged viewing of television programs violent in nature would have the largest distortions of social perceptions of criminal activity and have the highest aggression levels. Approximately 100 participants aged 18-25 completed this study. Aggression levels and social perceptions of crime were assessed through questionnaires. Participants viewed video tapes with varying lengths and amounts of criminal activity. A correlation between television violence and aggression levels were found, but no consensus was made about a causal relationship. It was also found that prolonged exposure to television violence did lead to distorted social perceptions of criminal activity. Implications and future applications are discussed.

The effects of violence in television media on social perceptions of crime and aggressive behaviors on its viewers.

Television has become a vital addition to the American home over the past fifty years. Not only does it provide entertainment for all ages, but it also brings information from around the world into the household. Television has been dubbed "the baby-sitter of America" because it has become one of the most common forms of entertainment for small children (Gerbner & Gross, 1976a). It has also been called "the cultural arm of American society" because one of the functions of TV, culturally, is to promote societal norms (Gerbner & Gross, 1976a). Gerbner and Gross (1976a), explained that most people's perceptions of standardized roles and behaviors were socialized by the television set. Television is introduced into the lives of many Americans at birth; infants see the television prior to reading, adolescents go home to the television after school, and television keeps the elderly company when no one else is there.

Violence has been an aspect of human society from the start, therefore, when television wishes to demonstrate reality, violence enters television programs. Not only is violence about the strong versus the weak, it demonstrates more about societal norms and values relating to relationships between individuals, about goals and determinations, about winning and losing, and about the fragility of life (Gerbner & Gross, 1976a). Symbolic violence, as seen on the television set, portrays real violence in a cheap and entertaining manner. Because entertainment is key for the television industry, Heath and Gilbert (1996), have found that there is more violence on television than there is in real life.

Because the television set is a prominent feature to American households, one begins to wonder what types of influences are learned from television media. Bandura's (1973) theory of observational learning with the development of aggression has brought many questions to researchers. His theory of observational learning stated that humans learn from watching those similar to them (Bandura, 1973). Actions followed by rewards and punishment cue individuals into learning what is "socially" (un)acceptable. This theory has come into context with television violence because of the way television networks portray such violent acts. The question remains whether television violence promotes aggressive behaviors among its viewers.

Social perceptions can also be distorted from television viewing with regards to criminal activity. Television networks tend to stereotype those who commit criminal activity and the way that activity is perceived by society in those programs (Potter, Warren, Vaughn, Howley, Land, & Hagemeyer 1997). Because there are more cases of violent and criminal behavior on television than in reality, perceptions on the amount of crime in American society can be distorted, and Americans' perceptions of the "typical" criminal can also be distorted (Geboyts, Roberts, & DasGupta, 1988). The focus of this study is to find if the relationship between television violence and aggression is causal and if social perceptions of crime in America are distorted by television violence. These two topics will be discussed in this paper: a possible causal relationship between television violence and aggression and distortions of social perceptions regarding crime in this paper.

In previous studies on television violence, many researchers have found a relationship between the amounts of violence shown on television programs and aggressive behaviors among its viewers. In one such study, Potter and colleagues (1997) were searching for the similarities antisocial acts on television had with antisocial acts in reality. They analyzed a week's worth of television programs by local and national stations, and their findings suggest that "the viewing of violence and antisocial behavior on television increases subsequent viewer aggression," (p. 71).

In a similar study, Gebotys, Roberts, and DasGupta (1988) investigated the relationship news media has with the perceptions of the seriousness of crime. They wanted to see if prolonged exposure to news media affected the ways people perceived the seriousness of criminal behaviors. Gebotys and colleagues (1988) found a significant positive relationship between news media exposure and the rated seriousness of crime, except for sexual assault.

The best factors regarding the high ratings of seriousness were exposure to television news, the sex of the participant, and the participants' victimization history.

However, the opposite findings have also been stated. The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) refuted a study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1982, in which a causal relationship was found between television violence and aggression (Surette, 1990). The NIMH found that although television violence may not directly cause aggressive behavior, "results showed that television is a significant contributor to such behavior," (NIMH, 1982). ABC agreed with the NIMH and previous researchers that television has social influences on children and adults which is seen through television networks' usage of positive programming especially with children's shows, yet they disagreed with the fact that television could have negative influences on its viewers because such negative behaviors like aggression are not supported by society as a whole. ABC stated that the guidelines the networks must follow regarding violence prohibits its glorification and portrayals of violence in such a manner that it suggests the activity should be copied. ABC refuted the claims the NIMH made by saying that the study concluded that the correlation of aggressive behaviors and television violence could have been produced by: "1) viewing violence leads to aggression; 2) aggressive tendencies lead to viewing violence; 3) both viewing violence and aggressive behavior are the products of a third condition or set of conditions such as age, sex, income," (p. 24). Therefore, no clear relationship between television violence and aggressive behaviors has been defined.

Because no clear consensus has been made between researchers and the television networks regarding the possible correlation between television violence and aggression, further research is necessary. In previous studies, the aggression levels of the participants were not measured prior to any treatments given, therefore, the researchers have not had a clear measurement of the actual cause television violence may have had in increased aggression levels of the participants. In the following study, this factor will be taken into account. Prior to any treatments, an aggression test will be given to the participants, and the same measurement will be given after the treatments to assess any increase in aggression levels. The present study suggests that prolonged exposure to television violence will increase aggression levels, especially those of persons similar to the Uniform Crime Reports criminal profiles of violent crimes. Those characteristics of persons who fall under the UCR criminal profiles of violent crimes are: 1) Male; 2) African-American; 3) under 25 years of age; and 4) lower socioeconomic class (Miethe & McCorkle, 1998).

Hypothesis 1: Participants with similar characteristics to those under the UCR criminal profiles of violent crimes with prolonged exposure to violent television programs will have the highest score increase on the measurement of aggression. Social Perceptions

Bandura's (1973) theory of observational learning can also be applied to how television viewers learn social perceptions from watching the television set. Television networks try to emulate society in a realistic manner for entertainment and educational purposes, therefore, violent acts are stereotyped to fit society. However, this can have adverse effects on how television audiences process this information.

Doob and MacDonald (1979) conducted a study on the possible causal relationship between television violence and fear of victimization. They stated that in many studies conducted by Gerbner and Gross (1974, 1976a, 1976b; Gerbner, Gross, Eleey, Fox, Jackson-Beeck, & Signorielli, 1976) about the effects television violence has on its audience, Gerbner and his colleagues found that "people who watch a lot of television are more likely to indicate fear of their environment," because not only do television audiences learn facts from television programs but they also "generalize from the information that they get from television," (p. 170).

In the a similar study conducted by Potter and his colleagues (1997), antisocial acts on television were compared to those in reality. They found that television programs do not portray criminal acts in a realistic manner. Their statistics showed that 87% of criminal acts on television are violent whereas in reality, only 13% of all criminal acts are violent. The study found a contrast between reality and television programming when the offender's race was an issue. African-Americans were the offenders of 25% of the criminal acts in television, while they are grossly overreprestented in reality. AfricanAmericans are offenders for almost 50% of criminal acts (Miethe & McCorkle, 1998). Television programs tend to show whites as the majority of crime victims (Potter et al., 1997), but reality shows that victim and offender profiles are extremely similar (Miethe & McCorkle, 1998). This would suggest that African-Americans are usually victims of criminal acts. Potter et al. (1997) found that the victim-offender relationship on television programs does not match that in reality. They found that the victim knew the offender in these programmings only 16% of the time, when in reality, violent criminals usually attack those they have close relationships with (Miethe & McCorkle, 1998).

The evidence to date suggests that television programmings of violent crime does not adequately reflect those in reality. This has been shown to affect Americans' perceptions of crime. In the study by Potter (1997), they found that 59% of Americans believe the criminal justice system closes the majority of criminal cases by arrests. However, most serious criminal acts are either, not reported to the police, not cleared by arrests, or go unpunished.

Other studies have tried to find a relationship between television violence and its effects on social perceptions. Chiricos, Eschholz, and Gertz (1997) conducted a study on participants' fear of crime from exposure to varied amounts of exposure to crime from different media source (e.g., newspapers, television) They found that one factor in how television violence affects participants' attitudes about crime is previous victimization experiences.

However, studies have not shown how prolonged exposure to television violence affects people's actual stereotypes of criminal activity. They have shown disparities between violent acts as portrayed by television and by reality, and studies have shown thatpeople generalize about their surroundings from what they see on television. In thepresent study, participants' existing stereotypes of criminal acts are taken into account,and these social perceptions will also be assessed after the treatment is given.

This study posits that those participants with prolonged exposure to television violence will have distorted social perceptions of crime.

Hypothesis 2: Participants with prolonged exposure to violent activity in television programming will score higher on the measurement dealing with social perceptions than the other treatment groups.

Method

Participants

One hundred introductory psychology students (50 male and 50 female, ages 18-25) from a large southeastern university will participate in this study. Participation will be voluntary, and participants will receive research credit towards the fulfillment of a course requirement and/or additional course credit.

Materials/Apparatus

The rooms in which the study will take place will be completely bare of all wall decorations and will have no windows. Approximately 10 desks set up in the room. In front of the desks will be a 20 inch screen television and VCR on a television stand.

A demographics sheet will be given to the participants to assess socioeconomic and environmental factors which may cause certain social perceptions involving crime (e.g., age, sex, race, etc.). In addition, other questions will assess the types of social environments in which the participants were exposed. An example of such questions would be: "I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood." with responses along a Likert-type scale with 1= "strongly disagree," to 5= "strongly agree". History of victimization and criminal behavior will also be addressed in this form (e.g., arrest, rape, abuse, etc.). Examples of questions addressing those topics would be: "Have you ever been arrested for a misdemeanor?" and "Have you ever been a victim of rape?" The participants will be asked to elaborate on the incident if it had occurred. The full demographics sheet is included in Appendix A.

A questionnaire titled "Social Perceptions" will be used to assess current social perceptions the participants have regarding criminals and criminal activity. There will be twenty items in this questionnaire. A sample question would be: "Most violent criminals are male." Responses are indicated along a Likert-type scale with 1= "completely disagree," to 5= "completely agree". The same questionnaire will be used after the participants receive the treatment in order to assess any change in social perceptions of criminals and criminal activity. The "Social Perceptions" questionnaire has an a of .87 and an a of .84 was obtained for the present study. The full scale is included in Appendix B.

A questionnaire titled "Aggressive Behaviors" will be used to asses current aggression levels (e.g., when I am angry I like to hit or break objects). There will be fifteen items in this questionnaire. Responses are indicated along a Likert-type scale with 1= "not like me" to 5= "very much like me". The same questionnaire will be used after the participants receive the treatment in order to assess any changes in aggression levels that the participants may undergo. The "Aggressive Behaviors" questionnaire has an a of .88 and an a of .85 was obtained for the present study. The full scale is included in Appendix C.

Video tapes containing violent television programs will be used. Programs will be taped from local and national television networks. Tapes will range in length from 30minutes, 1 hour, and 1 hour and 30 minutes. Programs on the video tapes will either be all violent programs (e.g., excerpt from the movie "Natural Born Killers"), half violent and half nonviolent programs (e.g., NYPD Blue television program), and all nonviolent programs (e.g., a news broadcast of a local school program). Copies of the tapes can be obtained upon request from the author.

Procedure

Participants will be randomly assigned to groups of approximately 10 persons each There will be a total of nine different groups which will be differentiated by the amount of violence in the television programs and the length of the video tapes. Tapes will vary in length of 30 minutes, 1 hour, and 1 hour and 30 minutes, and tapes will include all violent television programs, half violent and half nonviolent programs, and all nonviolent programs.

Once each group is established, participants will be asked to sign a consent form and will be guaranteed the confidentiality of the results. Participants will be told that the present study is going to assess influences television viewing may cause on social perceptions and behaviors. The demographics form, "Social Perceptions" questionnaire, and "Aggressive Behaviors" survey will be administered. In order to counterbalance any time ordered effects, the forms will be randomly assorted and given to the participants. The last four digits of the participants' social security number will be used to identify the corresponding test forms. After the forms are completed, the viewing of the video tapes will begin until the allotted time is complete. Once the participants finish viewing the video tapes, the "Social Perceptions" and "Aggressive Behaviors" forms will be administered again.

After the second set of forms are completed, participants will be debriefed. They will be told the true nature of the study which is to assess any causal relationship between the viewing of television violence and social perceptions of crime and aggressive behaviors.

Results

A grand table of groups means and standard deviations across all variables can be found in Table 1. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests.

Hypothesis 1: It was stated that participants with similar characteristics to those under the UCR criminal profiles of violent crimes with prolonged exposure to violent television programs would have the highest score increase on the measurement of aggression. Results can be seen in Table 2. Notice that males scored higher on the aggression measurement than females. There was no significant difference between the scores of African-American males or white males unless previous criminal history was taken into account. African-American males with a criminal record did score higher on aggression than African-American males without a criminal record. White males with a criminal record scored higher than white males without a criminal record on aggression, but not as high as African-American males with a criminal record. There was no significant difference between African-American females and white females with regards to aggression. There was no significant difference between aggression levels and socioeconomic levels across all participants.

When exposure to violent television programming was taken into account, the males in the group with all violent programs for 1 hour and 30 minutes scored highest on the change in aggression levels than any other participant in the study, however, it this change was not significant. African-American males scored the highest in the specific group. Males with a previous criminal record scored higher than males without a criminal record but not to a significant level. Likewise, African-American males with a criminal record scored higher than white males with a criminal record, and this finding was not significant.

The analyses depict differences in aggression levels between sex, previous criminal records, and race, when compared to the amount of violent behavior in television programming. However, these differences are not significant because the aggression levels prior to treatment and after treatment were not significantly changed. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is not supported.

Hypothesis 2: It was proposed that participants with prolonged exposure to violent activity in television programming would score higher on the measurement dealing with social perceptions than the other treatment groups. Results can be seen in Table 3. Participants in the group viewing all violent television programs for the longest amount of time (1 hour and 30 minutes) did score the highest on change in social perceptions of crime. These participants believed there was more crime and violence in American society than any other group. Females in this group had the most fear of being victimized than females in other groups. White females scored higher than African-American females in change of social perceptions in all groups but not to a significant degree. Those participants whose history states a large amount of television viewing on a regular basis scored highest of all participants on stereotypes of "typical" criminals versus "real" criminals prior to viewing the video tapes. Their social perceptions did not change after the treatment was given. Females with a previous criminal victimization scored highest with all aspects of social perceptions. There is sufficient evidence to accept the second hypothesis.

Discussion

The causal relationship between television violence and aggression levels was not supported. A link between the two variables can be seen, especially with those participants who have similar characteristics of UCR violent criminal profiles as stated by Miethe and McCorkle (1998). Although aggression levels were assessed before any treatment was given and assessed after the treatment, the change in aggression levels cannot be directly related to television violence. There was a noted change for males, specifically African-American males with a previous criminal record, after 1 hour and 30 minutes of viewing video tapes with all violent activity, however, this change was not a significant change. Other aspects, like familial history of aggression and abuse that were not taken into account, could have been factors to the sensitivity of this change.

Although hypothesis 1 was not supported, a correlation between aggression levels and television violence can be clearly seen. The findings of the present study do mimic those of the past where no causal relationship between television violence and aggression is found, but a correlation between the two variables is noticed.

With regards to hypothesis 2, the results clearly depict a change in social perceptions of crime for those participants who have the longest exposure to violent television. Factors such as how much television the participant watches on a regular basis, sex, and past victimization did have an effect on the stereotypes the participants had prior to treatment, but the change in social perceptions were not due to these variables.

Applications

As previously noted, television is a prominent aspect of American households. It is used for both entertainment and learning. Because learning aspects of television are retained by its viewers and are used to generalize about the outside world, the effects of these factors on society and the individual need to be assessed. The television networks ought to be responsive to such effects in order to assure the American public of safe entertainment. If certain television programs affect the population in a negative manner (e.g., aggression or negative stereotypes), then such programs need to be restricted better or censured. Research on television programs and its effect on human behaviors will prove useful when decisions on censorship and other controlling means of television programs are desired by the networks or by society at large.

Limitation and Directions for Future Research

Usage of a student sample may be seen as a limitation of the present study. If aggression levels and social perceptions of crime develop with life experience, then the external validity of this study may be reduced due to the participants' young age. However, the precipitating factors of aggression and social perceptions may be deeply rooted in environmental factors and not due to life experience. Therefore, the student population would not be a valid sample because such behaviors and perceptions would be strongly instilled in the minds of the participants and could not be changed by any manipulations. To address this possible limitation, a similar study should be conducted with older and younger participants. However, aggression levels and social perceptions can develop and change throughout an individual's lifetime. Television is introduced to American individuals from infancy and continue throughout the individual's life (Gerbner & Gross, 1976a). Hence, college aged individuals have had sufficient exposure to television and its programming types to generalize aspects of television programs to reality. They are also more apt to change their stereotypical views on society if such views are falsified. Thus the student participants are a sufficient sample in this study.

Further research is necessary to determine whether television violence is the precipitating factor of this aggressiveness. One needs to assess more environmental causes of aggression and determine if aggressive behaviors lead to subsequent viewing oftelevision programs which are violent in nature or if television violence leads to aggression. Conducting a continuous study with children in which one can monitor the amounts and types of television the child views may help in finding such factors. Understanding how television implicitly influences the mind and how individuals generalize information learned from the television would also aid in finding the possible causal relationship between television violence and aggression.

Understanding why and how individuals learn and process the information attained from the television would be useful in assessing learned social perceptions of society. More research is necessary in finding how stereotypes and social perceptions are learned and precipitated. The question that needs to be answered is whether stereotypes and other social perceptions are learned either through observational learning (e.g., from the television) or are they due to other environmental and sociological factors.

Television is and will remain to be an important aspect of the American society. New technologies make television programs more realistic and more readily available to the American public. The effects of these new technologies on society and individuals need to be studied because this type of technology is considered by most as a stability in society.

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