a bank robber felled by a bullet from a sheriff ’s gun, one estimate claimed the
average American child will view about 8,000 murders and more than
100,000 other acts of violence on television before leaving elementary school
(Smith & Donnerstein, 1998). And the situation isn ’t getting any better.
Studies find there is more violence on prime-time television today than everbefore (Bauder, 2005).
As the examples at the beginning of this section suggest, there are some
very convincing instances of people witnessing and then imitating media vio-lence. However, we can ’t determine conclusively from these examples that
viewing the aggressive act actually caused the person to behave violently. Itis possible that John Hinckley would have committed some other violent act
IN THE NEWS
Television Violence
In 1951, when television was in its
infancy, Senator Estes Kefauverraised questions about the impactthe new medium might have onimpressionable children. The debate
over appropriate subject matter fortelevision programming has conti-nued ever since. In the middle of thisdebate is the question of violence.Psychologists have produced strong
evidence suggesting exposure to
violent scenes and themes increasesthe likelihood of violence byviewers. Because of its prevalence in
American homes and its easy accessby children, violence on televisionmay pose a particular problem.
Although objections to television
violence have been around fordecades, the issue has drawnincreased attention in recent years.A 3-year study commissioned bythe National Cable TelevisionAssociation confirmed the concernabout television violence (Brown,1998; Murray, 1998). The $3.5million study found that 61% of alltelevision programs contained someform of violence. Psychologists werealso disturbed by the finding that
nearly 40% of the violence wasperformed by “good”characters
and that more than 70% of theaggressors showed no remorse for
their actions. Thus viewers are oftenexposed to the kind of violencemost likely to be imitated —violence
performed by desirable role modelswith apparently positive
consequences.
Professional organizations, the
television industry, and political
leaders have entered into the
ongoing discussion. The AmericanAcademy of Pediatrics, among otherprofessional organizations, hascalled on the entertainment industryto reduce the amount of violencechildren are exposed to. Congresspassed a law requiring all newtelevision sets to come equippedwith an electronic blocking deviceknown as a V-chip (the V stands forviolence). The device allows parentsto block their children ’s access to
programs identified as too violentfor young viewers. A rating systemwas also put into place so thatparents would be warned before-
hand of inappropriate material in aparticular program. And the U.S.Surgeon General released a reportdeclaring that violent television
programs were an important causeof aggressive behavior in children.Nonetheless, the amount of violenceshown on television has increased inrecent years (Bauder, 2005).
Despite widespread agreement
that there is a lot of violence ontelevision, there is little consensuson what to do about it. Even the
harshest critics are often reluctantto interfere with the broadcasters’freedom of speech. Televisionrepresentatives argue that parentsshould take the lead in regulatingwhat their children watch. Othersfear that the rating system willlead to even more graphic violencein programs identified as unfitfor children, similar to what hashappened in motion pictures.What seems certain is that thedebate over televised violence willcontinue.390 CHAPTER 14 The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach