Kids Programing

2 Pages 379 Words

TV violence viewed by kids follows them
Both sexes said more aggressive

Malcolm Ritter
Associated Press
Mar. 10, 2003 12:00 AM

Both boys and girls who watch a lot of violence on television have a heightened risk of aggressive adult behavior including spousal abuse and criminal offenses, no matter how they act in childhood, a new study says.

Though the results may not be surprising, experts say the study is important because it included hundreds of participants and showed the effects in females as well as males.

The participants were interviewed at ages 6 to 9 and again in their early 20s, making the study one of the few to follow children into adulthood to gauge the long-term effects of televised violence.

The research is presented in the March issue of the Journal Developmental Psychology by L. Rowell Huesmann and colleagues at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

Huesmann said televised violence suggests to young children that aggression is appropriate in some situations, especially when it is used by charismatic heroes. It also erodes a natural aversion to violence, he said.

He recommended that parents restrict viewing of violent TV and movies by young children and preteens as much as possible.

The analysis argued against the idea that aggressive children seek out TV violence, or that the results were because of the participants' socioeconomic status or intelligence, or their parents' child rearing practices.

The study involved 329 adults who were initially surveyed as children in the late 1970s. Researchers interviewed them again as adults, along with their spouses or friends, and checked crime records.

As children, the participants were rated for exposure to televised violence after they chose eight favorite shows from 80 popular programs for their age group and indicated how often they watched them.

The programs were assessed by researchers for amount of physical violence....