| THE INTEGRITY PAPERS | NUC Group | ceptualinstitute.com/bulletins.htm |
Essay |
TV violence . . a sonata in 3
parts:
data, hypothesis, and conclusion
Part 1: Data. Report distributed Dec 1, 1998 by PostPsyLab (PPL)of Valery Kourinsky, Moscow
"Television Violence Can Impair Memory For Commercial Messages, Says New Research
Besides Other Harmful Effects, Advertisers Should Be Wary of Showing Their Products During Violent TV Shows"report via APA : "Effects of Television Violence on Memory for Commercial Messages," by Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D., Iowa State University, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol.4, No. 4.
WASHINGTON - Violent television programming impedes the viewer's memory of the commercial messages run during the program, according to new research in the December issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
In research which may effect the media buying habits of product manufacturers, psychologist Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D., of Iowa State University found after conducting three experiments that watching violent television programs can impair a person's ability to remember what is being advertised during the commercials.
The first experiment tested 200 students' (100 male and 100 female) ability to recall the brand names of items from two commercials that advertised for Krazy Glue and Wisk laundry detergent after watching a violent or nonviolent film clip. Both types of film clips did not differ in pre-test measures of self-reported arousal (exciting, boring and/or arousing) and measures of physiological arousal (blood pressure and heart rate). Those who watch- ed the violent clips recalled fewer brand names and commercial message details than did those who watched the nonviolent clips, said Dr. Bushman. "Violent programming seems to impair memory for commercial messages even when the level of program arousal is controlled."
The second experiment tested another 200 students (100 men and 100 women) on brand recall, commercial message details and visual recognition of the brand marketed in the commercial, said Dr. Bushman. "These students were also given a distracter task where they had to recall other glue and detergent brands immediately after watching a violent or nonviolent video. The results match those of the first experiment. Those watching the violent videotape did poorer on recalling the brands, remembering the commercial messages and visually recognizing the brands from the slides."
"Finally, in the third experiment, 320 students (160 men and 160 women) reported their moods after watching four videotapes to determine whether anger obstructed their ability to remember the content of the commercials," said Dr. Bushman. After viewing either violent or nonviolent videotapes, the students completed a mood form that assessed their anger and positive emotions (alertness, determination and enthusiasm).
"The anger incurred after watching the violent videotapes did seem to have a lot to do with impairing their memory for the commercials because those who watched the violent videotape reported feeling more angry. They also had lower scores on the brand name recognition, brand name recall and commercial message recall measures," said Dr. Bushman.
"I can say," concluded Dr. Bushman, "that the negative effects of television violence on memory for commercial messages can be partly due to the anger induced by the violent content. This is not good for advertisers because in the time they hope viewers are absorbing their commercial messages, viewers may actually be trying to calm their anger brought on by what they just watched."
###
Article: "Effects of Television Violence on Memory for Commercial Messages," by Brad J. Bushman,
Ph.D., Iowa State University, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol.4, No. 4.(Full Text available from the APA Public Affairs Office before November 30)
Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D. can be reached at 515-294-1472 or
Part 2: Hypothesis Response Dec 1, 1998 to PostPsyLab & Prof. Bushman by
"The study on the effect of TV violence on memory is a very interesting and important one. It pinpoints the effects of enviromental information on 'behavior' ... the ability to cope with and adapt to the spectrum of events (energy/information dynamics) that surround us.
About 20 years ago in Florida USA there was a murder trial of an adolescent boy who had killed someone. The defense claimed that too much exposure to TV violence had numbed him to the values of right and wrong, and to appreciation for the consequences of his actions, and so had 'driven him' to commit murder. They claimed mercy for him because he had been manipulated and encouraged into crime by the society at large.
The concept got a lot of people's attention, but then was allowed (or assisted) to drift into a non-viable legal argument. The boy was found guilty and sentenced to a long prison term.
The issue is "exposure", "advertising" and that long squelched word, "propoganda". As much as we think ourselves and our thoughts as relatively free-and-independent, exposure to incessant information, presented in ways meant to affect and encourage certain ideas and actions, the best stance is awareness that life is that maleable, and the conscious effort to stay alert to the affects that 'experiences' have on us.
"Propaganda" is a tool for coordinating social behaviors and for promoting economic ones as well. It can be benign and it can be malignant ... depending upon the comfort level of individuals and societies at large. In it's "positive mode" is can be something really excellent and good, akin to something I wrote recently: "Advertising is the entropy of human information that binds activities and explorations into societies and cultures." In its "negative mode" the result can be individually aberrant social
behaviors and 'mob' mentality.The spectrum of possibilities is open, spanning from good to evil, from beneficial to destructive. And, sometimes there are competing goals. Gratuitous violence in television shows sends the general message that violence is a socially acceptable form of conflict resolution (sort of like keeping the mental pump primed that war and life sacrifice are ok if the social need arises). It also is an "attention grabber" ... like watching the daredevils in circuses performing life-threatening but not life-taking feats ... watchers gain an empathetic thrill without putting their own lives in danger. (This in fact brings up an important fundamental physio-psychological notion ... that living entities thrive on a constant stream of stimulations because it informs them about the world at large and allows for appropriate survival-responses both "now" and "later". ie Its an important on-going-learning dynamic and relationship). Now supposedly, such "attention grabbing" is associated with heightened mental alertness. If it weren't, then it would be of no use to the sentience experiencing the event.
But now it seems as though the TV-violence does "bring the audience" to watch, but gets them SO riled that they don't pay alert attention to the sales-pitch. !!
Serves the advertisers right - to use a colloquial phrase. They got the opposite effect from what they pre-planned. And possibly opened a Pandora's box of human behavior that they didn't intend ... and can't control:
a population driven to criminality and anarchic violence.(shhhh! Just don't let the population know what's been tried on them. They think they control their own lives!) :-))) "
Part 3: a Plan written Dec 1, 1998 to a PostPsyLab list member
"Dear Karen,
Thanks for writing. My concern is in several areas. The human-sphere is growing in ways that demand humanity's maturation to match the technological and economic assembling that is going on. We are long past being agronomic social beings.
As Benjamin Whorf (the linguist) among others have pointed out, humans experience information from the outside and from the inside of our minds ... they meld into a one-ness. And so we are succeptable to it all. If we strive for a "better world", we can't mean only material comfort. It has to be one in which human dignity is held just as high.
That, it seems to me, requires the guided instilling, from the earliest experiences to all that we do as young adults and as 'mature' elders, of a sense of values which is concerned with companions ... people, gaia, the world at large. I know that is a tall order, but it begins by encouraging the pleasure of learning, self-worth, and positive reinforcements in general ... which all begin in infancy. We are born thirsting for experiences as much as bodily nourishment. It's the imperative we are born with.
Flood a child's word with language stimulation, and the time to test it's own control of body motions. Make it a competent sentient being ... and that is what it will become ... to its own benefit and to the world's.
If we sensitize our children (our selves) to degrading events and behaviors then everyone loses ... individuals and societies.
My own work is more generally oriented. It's on the web at ceptualinstitute.com with these sections
ceptualinstitute.com/links.htm my own writings
ceptualinstitute.com/genre.htm works by others that are of significance
ceptualinstitute.com/poetics.htm my stuff here too, but I have some "lyrics" by popular
entertainers that you'd find interesting ("Lyrics that Teach")But in particular: ceptualinstitute.com/nuc/nuc_com012.htm (Concept Rhymes) might intrigue you.
Jamie
CI Website Sections
THE INTEGRITY PAPERS
GENRE WORKS (Works by Other Writers)
MINDWAYS (Global URLs)
CONVERSATIONS
DIALOGUES
POETICS
