Film provoked aggression in children: effects of prior affection training
Date
1979
Authors
Marton, John P.
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Abstract
This research investigated the effects of prior affection training on subsequent television provoked aggression. The research manipulated the nature of children's training with the object (a stuffed Mickey Mouse toy) toward which aggression was later modelled via television.
Four and five year old children attending day care centres in Victoria, B.C. participated. Affection training consisted of the experimenter modelling a sequence of care taking acts directed at "Mickey''; feeding, cleaning, resting, etc. The experimenter modelled each act in a manner emphasizing gentle, affectionate components (encapsulating Mickey close to body with large surface area of contact, drawing Mickey close to face, incorporating slow and gentle movement, and interspersing stroking and rocking motions). The experimenter instructed and prompted imitation of each act by the child and provided physical and verbal guidance, as required, to ensure that affectionate components were present in the child's behaviour. Satisfactory imitations were verbally consequated.
Teacher training was a control training procedure consisting of modelling, prompting, and guiding a parallel sequence of caretaking acts. However, this procedure emphasized teaching components of behaviours and was devoid of overt physical affection. Affection and teacher training procedures were matched with respect to time spent with the experimenter, verbal consequences received from the experimenter, number of behaviours trained, etc. Another control group received no training. Televised aggression, shown to each of these children, depicted a sequence of caretaking acts similar to those in the training phase. However, these acts were modelled in a harsh, rough, aggressive manner.
Subsequent effects on behaviour were assessed in two setting conditions. In the prompted play setting (immediately following the televised aggression), the experimenter prompted the child to engage in each of the eight previously modelled caretaking acts (without specifying the manner in which the act was to be performed). Children were observed with respect to the character of their caretaking as regards the occurrence of directly imitative aggression (aggressive behaviours matching those televised) and generalized aggression (other aggressive behaviours). In the following free play setting, the children played with Mickey without specific prompts and occurrences of the two forms of aggression were again scored. Interobserver agreement was over 90% for directly imitative aggression and over 70% for generalized aggression. Data on the occurrences of affectionate and teaching imitations were also obtained through out.
Additional experimental conditions consisted of teacher training followed by nonaggressive television (as a control to determine the effects of the televised aggression in terms of provoking aggression) and affection training followed by aggressive modelling directly followed by free play (to determine the role of presence/absence of prompted play in contributing to free play effects).
The hypothesis tested was that affection training would buffer the occurrence of television provoked aggression. The results indicate that during prompted play only directly imitative aggression was provoked by the aggressive videotape. No significant differences in occurrences of directly imitative aggression were obtained between affection trained and teacher trained children. During free play both directly imitative and generalized aggression were provoked. During free play there were significantly fewer occurrences of aggression in affection trained children than in teacher trained children, by both the multi variate test for the two forms of aggression and by the univariate test for generalized aggression. The results are discussed in terms of the social demand characteristics of the two play settings, procedural issues, and presumed histories for affectionate and aggressive behaviours.