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Huesmann et al. 2003 - Coggle Diagram
Huesmann et al. 2003
Strengths
This is a rare example of a longitudinal study that looks at the long-term impacts of social learning.
The analysis included controls for socioeconomic status, intellectual ability and a range of parent factors.
Supports Bandura's findings, and social learning theory in general.
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Procedure
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To what extent does early childhood exposure to media violence predict young adult aggression and violence?
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Does the extent to which the child viewer identifies with the aggressive character or believes the plot is realistic affect the strength of the prediction?
To what extent does any long-term relation seem to be due to more aggressive children simply liking to watch violence, or due to some environmental, family, or personal 'third variable' that stimulates both childhood violence viewing and childhood and adult aggression?
Aim
To investigate the relationship between children's exposure to TV violence and later aggressive and violent behaviour in young adulthood.
Method
It was a longitudinal study, including a meta-analysis of the data. The original study was conducted upon 557 children growing up in the Chicago area, and the follow-up study was conducted on the same individuals, now as young adults, in 1992.
Results
For both male and female participants, childhood TV violence viewing correlated significantly with young adult aggression 15 years later. Furthermore, childhood perceptions that TV violence reflects real life and childhood identification with same-sex aggressive TV characters significantly correlated with adult aggression 15 years later. Parent factors play a role in influencing both aggression and TV habits. However, the results suggest that the parent factors probably do not account by themselves for the longitudinal relations between TV-violence viewing and later aggression.
Conclusion
Social learning appeared to account for aggressive behaviour in young adulthood, as a result of TV-violence viewing, and there were no gender differences in the findings.
Limitations
The study was based in Chicago, in an individualist culture, so results may not be generalisable to other cultural contexts.