The role of desensitisation, disinhibition and cognitive priming Flashcards
Desensitisation
Desensitisation- Repeated exposure to extreme violence in the media such as films and computer games results in lower emotional reactions to violence. This process is called desensitisation. Under normal circumstances the sympathetic nervous system switches on in response to witnessing violence or aggression. Heart rate increases, adrenaline is released and this
physiological stress response causes a desire to remove ourselves from the object. Viewing aggression will cause an initiation of this evolved ‘fight or flight’ response. This response was adaptive for our ancestors and helped keep them alive.
Psychologists propose that desensitisation as a response to violence viewed in computer games can have a negative effect. Individuals may not respond to real aggression with any physiological arousal, such as that associated with fear. The result of this effect is that individuals may be more likely to accept violence and aggression and may be more likely to respond violently and aggressively when presented with the opportunity to do so.
Desensitisation can be monitored by physical indicators of stress, such as heartbeat and galvanic skin response. [Linz 1989]
Desensitisation Evaluation
Carnagey (2007) examined the effect of playing violent video games on later response to real-life violence. After randomly being allocated to play a violent or non-violent video game for 20 minutes, participants watched a film depicting real-life violence. Their physiological responses (heart rate, galvanic skin response) were measured. Those who had played violent video games had lower responses on both measures, suggesting desensitisation. This suggests that exposure to violent video games does have a desensitising effect, reducing emotional reactions to real-life aggression, potentially making aggression more likely. However this research only shows short term effects, so this may be reversed an hour or two after playing the game, for example.
Berkowitz and Alioto (1973) carried out a laboratory experiment where participants who saw a film depicting aggression as vengeance (revenge) gave more (fake) electric shocks of longer duration to a confederate. Berkowitz and Alioto (1973) propose that aggression is more likely to occur if the viewed aggression is seen as an acceptable response and disinhibition is more likely to occur.
Disinhibition
Disinhibition is when people behave in ways uncharacteristic of normal behaviours as normal constraints against certain behaviours have been weakened by environmental or biological triggers.
Normally we act in certain ways because we have been socialised to know what is right and wrong. We get aroused and excited by a film or a game and this causes us to lose our inhibitions, acting in a more extreme manner till the excitement dies down.
Long term Disinhibition: Too much violent TV can change our actual moral values via social learning theory so that we see more violent standards of behavior as acceptable. One aspect of this is that we often see acts of violence carried out by figures of great status (i.e: the hero) going unpunished in movies or games and this could lead to disinhibition via vicarious reinforcement.
Individual factors [Collins 1989] make disinhibition more likely:
1.Violent home background
2.Physical punishment of children
3.Younger viewers
4.Children with low intelligence
5.Children who believe their heroes are realistic
6.Children who believe the media reflects real life
Disinhibition less likely if strong family norms against violence or where adults discuss issues from the film with their children.
Disinhibition evaluation
Anderson and Dill [2000] Found that playing a violent computer game led to more aggressive thoughts. They claimed that even playing the game just once could be having this effect, although the effect might only be short term.
Bushman [1998] Participants who had watched a violent film responded more quickly to aggressive words than those who had watched a non-violent film.
Cognitive Priming
Children as young as ten may have been exposed to 8,000 murders and up to 100,000 other acts of violence on television alone (Huston et al., 1992). Cognitive priming is based on the idea that memory works through association. It therefore contends that events and media images can stimulate related thoughts in the minds of audience members. For example, if we have often seen clowns throwing custard pies at one another, then when we encounter a custard pie in real life we may think about throwing it at someone.
A schema is a model of what we think normally happens. We assume that our parents will feed us and our friends will be pleased to see us because that is what normally happens.
A cognitive script is a learned way of dealing with a situation. We have learned that in a hotel restaurant we sit down and wait to be served, but in a burger bar we line up at the counter.
Berkowitz thinks watching violent movies could lead to storing schemas and cognitive scripts which involve aggression EG. the students in the Stanford Prison experiment had never been in a real prison but they may have had a schema based on movies they had seen. EG. Students who play “Grand Theft Auto” might develop a cognitive script for what to do when traffic lights turn amber. This may be different from the way their Grandma drives!
Priming means that a particular event, or an image or even a word may be associated with these thoughts. We call that a trigger. When we encounter the trigger we may respond in the way we have been primed. EG. a football comes bouncing towards me - without thinking I put out my foot to stop it or kick it back, but if it’s a cricket ball I would pick it up and throw it back. I am primed to respond differently to the cricket ball. So Berkowitz argues that we learn anti-social attitudes from the media and these are associated with certain triggers.
Cognitive Priming Evaluation
Steve Berkowitz [1984] did an experiment involving an argument in an office. In condition A there was a baseball bat on the side of the desk. In condition B there was a badminton racquet. Berkowitz found the presence of the baseball bat led to more aggressive responses.
Murray [2007] – used fMRI scans to study children’s brains when watching violent and non-violent TV programmes. Violent films led to increased activity in those areas which deal with emotion, arousal and attention – not surprising – but also in the areas used to store episodic memory. This supports the suggestion that children can store scripts.
