NCJ Number
148977
Editor(s)
G A Comstock,
E A Rubinstein
Date Published
1972
Length
441 pages
Annotation
This report presents the methodologies and findings of eight field studies of adolescents' exposure to violent television programs and its correlation with their aggressive behaviors and feelings.
Abstract
Although the concepts, samples, measures, and analytical modes of these studies differed, a significant positive correlation between the viewing of violence on television and aggressive behaviors and feelings was found more often than not. This positive correlation holds consistently in varying samples of different sexes, age levels, and locales, and with a variety of measures of aggressiveness. None of the studies suggests, however, that viewing television violence could account for more than approximately 10 percent of the total variance in the measures of adolescent aggressiveness. The studies also show that adolescent aggressiveness is associated with a number of other factors that have nothing to do with television. Their "effects" tend to remain when the viewing of television violence is controlled statistically; several of them are more strongly correlated with aggressiveness. The studies do not support the hypothesis that the viewing of television violence is the sole or primary cause of adolescent aggressive behavior. The findings do not eliminate the possibility that the apparent contribution of television violence to aggressive behavior and feelings is an artifact of other causal processes that have yet to be identified. Tabular data, references, and footnotes accompany each study.