Desensitisation, Disinhibition & Cognitive Priming

Question 1

What is desentisiation?

Answer 1

• Reduced sensitivity to a stimulus- this may be psychological (less emotional response) or physiological (lowered heart rate).
• This reduced response may make a behaviour such as aggression more likely
• Normally when we witness violent actions- experience physiological arousal associated w sympathetic nervous sytem e.g. sweating, high blood pressure etc.
• But when children in particular repeatedly view aggression on TV or play violent computer games they become used to its effects- stimulus that is usually aversive has a lesser impact so anxiety & arousal levels become lower

Question 2

What labotory study was conducted on these desensitisation effects?

Answer 2

• Monica Weisz & Christopher Earls
• They showed their participants the feature film straw dogs, which contains a prolonged & graphic scene of rape
• Ppts then re watched a re-enactment of a rape trial
• Compared w those who watched a non sexually violent film- male viewers of Straw Dogs showed greater acceptance of rape myths & sexual aggression
• They also expressed less sympathy towards the rape victim in the trial & were less likely to find the defendant guily
• There was no such effects of film type on female ppts

Question 3

What is disinhibition?

Answer 3

• Most people generally hold the view that violence & aggression are antisocial & harmful, so there are strong social & psychological inhibitions against using aggression to resolve conflicts- these are learned processes by the SLT
• According to the disinhibiton explanation these usual restraints are loosened after exposure to violent media
• Aggressive behaviour is often made to appear normative & socially sanctioned in such media, especially if portrayals minimise the effects of violence on its victims & suggest that it is justified.

• It is not unusual for for video games to show violence being rewarded at the same time as its consequences are minimised or ignored
• This creates new norms for the viewer

Question 4

What is cognitive priming?

-

Answer 4

• Repeated viewing of aggressive media, especially game playing can provide us with a ‘script’ about how violent situations may ‘play out’.
• According to Rowell Huesmann (1988), this script is stroed in memory & so we become ‘ready’ or primed to be aggressive
• The process is mostly automatic, directing our behaviour without us even being aware of it
• The script is triggered when we encounter cues in a situation that we percieve as aggressive

Question 5

What the study conducted to see the effect of cognitive priming on aggression?

Answer 5

• Peter Fischer & Tobias Greitemeyer
• They investigated a neglected form of media violence-song lyrics
• Male ppts listened to songs featuring aggressively derogatory lyrics about women
• Compared w when they listened to neutral lyrics, ppts subsequently recalled more negative qualities about women & behaved more aggressively towards a female confederate
• This procedure was replicated w female ppts using ‘men-hating’ song lyrics w similar results

Question 6

Give one strength of the desensitisation explanation.

Answer 6

• OS: Research support
• Barbra Krahe showed ppts violent (& non violent) films while measuring physiological arousal using skin conductance
• Ppts who were habitiual viewers of violent media showed lower levels of arousal as they watched the violent film clips
• They also gave louder bursts of white noise (a measure of aggression) to a confederate, without being provoked (proactive aggression
• This lower arousal in violent media users reflects desensitisation to the effects of violence & it was also linked to greater willingness to be aggressive

Question 7

Give one limitation of the desensitisation explanation

Answer 7

OL is that desensitisation cannot explain some aggression
- The study by Krahe failed to link to media viewing, lower arousal & provoked (reactive) reactive aggression
- A more valid explanation for this may be catharsis
- This psychodynamic theory suggests that viewing violent media is a saftey valve, allowing people to release aggressive impulses without behaving violently
- Therefore not all aggression is the result of desensitisation & alternative explanations may be more valid

Question 8

Give one strength of the disinhibited explanation.

Answer 8

• OS is research support
• Berkowitz & Alioto
• Found that ppts who saw a film depicitng aggression as vengeance gave more (fake) electric shocks of longer duration to a confederate
• Media violence may disinhibit aggressive behaviour if it is presented as justified & socially acceptable- as in the case of vengeance
• This demonstrates the link between removal of social constraints & subsequent aggressive behaviour

Question 9

Give another strength of disinhibition.

Answer 9

• It can explain the effects of cartoon violence
• Children do not learn specific aggressive behaviours from cartoon models
• (e.g. it is not possible to punch someone in which their head spins 306 degrees)
• Instead they learn that aggression in general is acceptable (socially normative)
• This is especially true if the cartoon model is not punished- this disinhibits aggressive behaviour
• Therefore disinhibition explains how cartoon aggression can lead to aggression in those who observe it

Question 10

Give one strength of cognitive priming.

Answer 10

• Its real world applications.
• Whether real-world situations become violent often depends on how people interpret environmental cues. This in turn depends on the cognitive scripts they have stored in memory
• Bushman & Anderson (2002)
• Argue that someone who habitually watches violent media accesses stored aggressive scripts more readily
• So they are more likely to interpret cues as aggressive & resort to a violent soloution without considering the alternatives
• This suggests that interventions cld potentially reduce aggressive behaviours by challenging hostile cognitive biases

Question 11

Give one limitation of cognitive priming.

Answer 11

• OL is confounding variables in research
• For example, research into the effects of video games has found that playing violent games primes violent behaviour more than non-violent games do
• The problem is that violent games tend to be way more complex in their gameplay than non-violent games & this complexity is a confounding variable (i.e it is the complexity which causes the cognitive priming effect not the violence)
• David Zenndle et al 2018
• Found that when complexity was controlled the priming effects of violent video games disappeared
• Therefore the supportive findings of studies into priming may be at least partly due to confounding variables