Let’s take a look at what Josephson found.
Before I show you the results, I have to tell you that there was a third condition, in which
the children watched the violent TV show and were also given a cue to remind them about
the show before the hockey game.
Here on the y-axis, we have the number of aggressive behaviours elicited by the children
in the study during a game of hockey.
On the x-axis, we have either those who watched the nonviolent TV program, the violent TV
program, and those who watched the violent TV program and were given a cue to remind
them about the violent program.
Josephson found that, the children who watched the violent TV program showed more aggressive
behaviours during the game of hockey compared to those who watched the nonviolent TV program.
Now, as I said earlier, before the children started to play hockey, some of those who
watched the violent program were given a cue that reminded them of the violent program
they watched.
For some of children, before they started
to play hockey, the experimenter passed around a walkie-talkie, like a CB radio, and this
was relevant because this is how the police officers communicated with each other in the
violent program.
So, the walkie-talkie was a cue to the content of the violent TV program.
It turned out that, if the children were reminded of the violent program, they showed even more
aggressive behaviours compared to those who were not given the cue.
This is one of many studies that have examined whether or not exposure to media violence
influences aggression.
Even though this study shows, that at least in the short-term and in the sporting arena,
that watching a violent TV program influences children to behave more aggressively, there
is continuing debate in the literature about whether exposure to media violence during
childhood, is the reason why some people are becoming aggressive adults.