The Influence of Media Violence on Youth

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Craig A. Anderson, Leonard Berkowitz, Edward Donnerstein, ...
First Published December 1, 2003 Research Article
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x

Research on violent television and films, video games, and music reveals unequivocal
evidence that media violence increases the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in
both immediate and long-term contexts. The effects appear larger for milder than for more
severe forms of aggression, but the effects on severe forms of violence are also substantial
(r = .13 to .32) when compared with effects of other violence risk factors or medical effects
deemed important by the medical community (e.g., effect of aspirin on heart attacks). The
research base is large; diverse in methods, samples, and media genres; and consistent in
overall findings. The evidence is clearest within the most extensively researched domain,
television and film violence. The growing body of video-game research yields essentially the
same conclusions.

Short-term exposure increases the likelihood of physically and verbally aggressive behavior,
aggressive thoughts, and aggressive emotions. Recent large-scale longitudinal studies
provide converging evidence linking frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with
aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse abuse. Because extremely
violent criminal behaviors (e.g., forcible rape, aggravated assault, homicide) are rare, new
longitudinal studies with larger samples are needed to estimate accurately how much
habitual childhood exposure to media violence increases the risk for extreme violence.

Well-supported theory delineates why and when exposure to media violence increases
aggression and violence. Media violence produces short-term increases by priming existing
aggressive scripts and cognitions, increasing physiological arousal, and triggering an
automatic tendency to imitate observed behaviors. Media violence produces long-term
effects via several types of learning processes leading to the acquisition of lasting (and
automatically accessible) aggressive scripts, interpretational schemas, and aggression-
supporting beliefs about social behavior, and by reducing individuals' normal negative
emotional responses to violence (i.e., desensitization).
Certain characteristics of viewers (e.g., identification with aggressive characters), social
environments (e.g., parental influences), and media content (e.g., attractiveness of the
perpetrator) can influence the degree to which media violence affects aggression, but there
are some inconsistencies in research results. This research also suggests some avenues for
preventive intervention (e.g., parental supervision, interpretation, and control of children's
media use). However, extant research on moderators suggests that no one is wholly immune
to the effects of media violence.

Recent surveys reveal an extensive presence of violence in modern media. Furthermore,

many children and youth spend an inordinate amount of time consuming violent media.
Although it is clear that reducing exposure to media violence will reduce aggression and
violence, it is less clear what sorts of interventions will produce a reduction in exposure. The
sparse research literature suggests that counterattitudinal and parental-mediation
interventions are likely to yield beneficial effects, but that media literacy interventions by
themselves are unsuccessful.

Though the scientific debate over whether media violence increases aggression and violence
is essentially over, several critical tasks remain. Additional laboratory and field studies are
needed for a better understanding of underlying psychological processes, which eventually
should lead to more effective interventions. Large-scale longitudinal studies would help
specify the magnitude of media-violence effects on the most severe types of violence.
Meeting the larger societal challenge of providing children and youth with a much healthier
media diet may prove to be more difficult and costly, especially if the scientific, news, public
policy, and entertainment communities fail to educate the general public about the real risks
of media-violence exposure to children and youth.

For more than five decades, Americans have been concerned about the frequent depiction of
violence in the mass media and the harm these portrayals might do to youth. Reflecting this
concern, several major United States Government investigations and reports have examined
the research on the association between youthful media consumers' exposure to television
violence and their aggressive behavior—the 1954 Kefauver hearings, the 1969 National
Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, the 1972 Surgeon General's
report Television and Growing Up (U.S. Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee,
1972), and the 1982 National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) report Television and
Behavior. In 1972, U.S. Surgeon General Jesse Steinfeld testified before Congress that “the
overwhelming consensus and the unanimous Scientific Advisory Committee's report
indicates that televised violence, indeed, does have an adverse effect on certain members of
our society” (Steinfeld, 1972, p. 26). The 1982 NIMH report reinforced this conclusion, and
professional organizations took a similar position in viewing media violence as a serious
threat to public health because it stimulates violent behavior by youth. By the early 1990s,
most researchers in the field had arrived at a consensus that the effect of media violence on
aggressive and violent behavior was real, causal, and significant.

A number of professional groups have also addressed the state of relevant research on
media violence (e.g., Eron, Gentry, & Schlegel's, 1994, report for the American Psychological
Association), as have other federal agencies (e.g., Federal Trade Commission, 2000).
Indeed, six medical and public-health professional organizations held a Congressional Public
Health Summit on July 26, 2000, and issued a Joint Statement on the Impact of
Entertainment Violence on Children. This statement noted that “entertainment violence can
lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behavior, particularly in children.” The
statement also concluded that the research points “overwhelmingly to a causal connection
between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children” (Joint Statement, 2000,
p. 1). The six signatory organizations were the American Academy of Pediatrics, American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Medical Association, American
Psychological Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, and American
Psychiatric Association. These reports, coupled with mounting public concern, stimulated a
search for ways to reduce the adverse effects of media violence, and were responsible, in
part, for the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which mandated that new TV
sets be manufactured with a V(for violence)-chip that permits parents to block objectionable
content.

For a variety of reasons, it is now time for a new assessment of what is known scientifically
about how media violence affects young people and what can be done to mitigate these
adverse effects. The body of research on TV violence continues to grow, both in depth and in
breadth. In addition, important changes are occurring in the landscape of entertainment-
media use, and some of these changes have stimulated new areas of research. The rise of
new media—particularly interactive media (such as video games and the Internet)—has
introduced new ways children and youth can be exposed to violence. The roles of these new
media in producing youthful violence should be considered in light of existing theory and new
research. It is especially advisable to ascertain what contribution media violence makes to
serious interpersonal physical violence among older children and adolescents given the
current national concern about this problem.

It is also important to present this report because of the disparity between, on one side, the
actual research findings and, on the other side, the intransigent assertions made by a
number of vocal critics. That is, although research shows the adverse effects of media
violence, and there is increasing consensus among researchers in this area about these
effects, the critics continue to pronounce that media violence cannot be affecting youth
(e.g., Fowles, 1999; Freedman, 1984, 2002; Rhodes, 2000). Also indicative of this difference
in views, a recent statistical analysis of the media-violence research (Bushman & Anderson,
2001) demonstrated that although the scientific evidence has grown considerably stronger
over the past three decades, recent news reports imply that the scientific evidence is weaker
than did earlier news reports.

In this report, we do not deal directly with recent critiques of the field. A number of carefully
reasoned essays already point out flaws in the critiques and explain why the proposition that
media violence can have adverse effects on its audience is so strongly opposed by various
interest groups (Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Hamilton, 1998; Huesmann, Eron, Berkowitz,
& Chaffee, 1992; Huesmann & Moise, 1996; Huesmann & Taylor, 2003). Rather, our
purpose is to summarize current scientific knowledge about five critical questions:

 What does research say about the relation—both short-term and long-term—between
media violence and aggressive and violent behavior? (Overview of Empirical Research)
 How does media violence produce its effects on aggressive and violent behavior?
(Theoretical Explanations)
 What characteristics of media violence are most influential, and who is most susceptible
to such influences? (Research on Moderator Effects)
 How widespread and accessible is violence in the media (television, movies, music
videos, video games, Internet)? (Research on Media Use and Content)
 How can individuals and society counteract the influence of media violence? (Research
on Interventions)
We summarize our observations in the Discussion section, which also identifies crucial areas
for additional research.

In reading through this monograph, a few important points should be kept in mind: First,
researchers investigating the impact of media violence on youth have focused mostly on how
it affects the viewer's aggression. Aggression is defined by psychologists as any behavior
that is intended to harm another person. There are many forms of aggression. For
example, verbal aggression usually refers to saying hurtful things to the
victim. Relational or indirect aggression refers to behavior that is intended to harm the target
person but is enacted outside of the target person's view (e.g., behind his or her back), such
as telling lies to get the person in trouble or to harm his or her interpersonal relationships.
The aggressive behaviors of greatest concern usually involve physical aggression. Physical
aggression may range in severity from less serious acts, such as pushing or shoving, to
more serious physical assaults and fighting, extending to violent acts that carry a significant
risk of serious injury. There is no clear-cut consensus-based line separating “violence” from
milder forms of physical aggression, nor is one needed to understand the research findings
on media violence. We use the term violence to refer to the more extreme forms of physical
aggression that have a significant risk of seriously injuring their victims.

Some studies have focused on the impact of media violence on aggressive thinking,
including beliefs and attitudes that promote aggression. Other studies have focused on the
influence of media violence on aggressive emotions—that is, on emotional reactions, such
as anger, that are related to aggressive behavior. It is important to keep these three types of
outcome variables (behavior, thoughts, emotions) separate, and to reserve the labels
“aggression” and “violence” for behaviors intended to harm another person.

Second, as we and others have frequently noted, the weight of evidence indicates that
violent actions seldom result from a single cause; rather, multiple factors converging over
time contribute to such behavior. Accordingly, the influence of the mass media is best viewed
as one of the many potential factors that help to shape behavior, including aggression. When
we use causal language, we do not mean that exposure to media violence is either a
necessary or a sufficient cause of aggressive behavior, let alone both necessary and
sufficient (Anderson & Bushman, 2002c). To our knowledge, no media-violence researcher
has ever made such an extreme claim. The 14-year-old boy arguing that he has played
violent video games for years and has not ever killed anybody is absolutely correct in
rejecting the extreme “necessary and sufficient” position, as is the 45-year-old two-pack-a-
day cigarette smoker who notes that he still does not have lung cancer. But both are wrong
in inferring that their exposure to their respective risk factors (violent media, cigarettes) has
not causally increased the likelihood that they and people around them will one day suffer
the consequences of that risky behavior.

Third, a developmental perspective is essential to an adequate understanding of how media

violence affects youthful conduct and to the formulation of a coherent public-health response
to this problem. Most youth who are aggressive and engage in some forms of antisocial
behavior do not go on to become violent teens and adults. However, research has shown
that a significant proportion of aggressive children are likely to grow up to be aggressive
adults, and that seriously violent adolescents and adults often were highly aggressive and
even violent as children. In fact, the best single predictor of violent behavior in older
adolescents and young adults is aggressive behavior when they were younger (Huesmann &
Moise, 1998; Tremblay, 2000). Thus, influences that promote aggressive behavior in young
children can contribute to increasingly aggressive and ultimately violent behavior many years
later. It is therefore important to identify factors—including media violence—that, singly and
together, may play a role in these outcomes in childhood.

Fourth, it is important to avoid the error of assuming that small statistical effects necessarily
translate into small practical or public-health effects. There are many circumstances in which
statistically small effects have large practical consequences. Perhaps the most relevant
circumstances are when small effects accumulate over time and over large proportions of the
relevant population. For example, when Abelson (1985) asked a group of Yale University
psychology scholars knowledgeable both about the concept of statistical variance and about
baseball “to estimate what percentage of the variance in whether or not the batter gets a hit
is attributable to skill differentials between batters” (p. 131), he found that these statistically
sophisticated psychologists greatly overestimated the variance due to skill differences. The
median estimate was 25%, whereas the correct statistical answer is actually about 0.3%. But
this small effect of batting-skill differences has a huge impact on outcomes such as team
win/loss records, career runs batted in, league championships, and World Series
championships, because even small differences in batting skill accumulate across large
numbers of times at bat within a season and across a career.

Similarly, even small statistical effects of media violence on aggressive behavior can have
important societal consequences for at least three different reasons. First, a large portion of
the population (almost everyone, in fact) is exposed to this risk factor (accumulation across a
large population). Second, the deleterious effects of exposure to media violence are likely to
accumulate (via learning) within the individual with repeated exposure. Third, even short-
lived effects of a single exposure (via priming effects—see the Theoretical Explanations
section) can add significant amounts of aggression and violence to society because at any
given waking hour a large portion of the population either is currently being exposed to
violent media or has been exposed to such violence within the past 20 min.

Medical scientists and public-health officials seem to have avoided the problem of
underestimating the public-health importance of small effects by translating their findings into
cancer rates or heart attack rates or death rates for the entire U.S. population, but behavioral
scientists have not traditionally done this type of population-rate translation. Thus, people are
frequently shocked to learn that many behavioral science effects are considerably larger than
key medical science effects that are deemed extremely important (e.g., Bushman &
Huesmann, 2001). For example, Rosenthal (1990) reported that the major study on aspirin's
ability to reduce heart attacks was stopped prematurely because the initial results were so
strong that it was deemed ethically irresponsible to continue giving placebos to the control
group; aspirin's effect accounted for about 0.1% of the variance. Our point: Conclusions
about small statistical effect sizes need to be made with caution and in this broader context.

Finally, it must be recognized that the firmest evidence about the effects of media violence,
or any other presumed causal influence, on aggression is provided by true experiments in
which participants are randomly assigned to conditions experiencing different “doses” of the
factor under investigation. There have been many such experiments involving media
violence. Out of ethical necessity, these generally have not examined effects on the most
serious types of physical aggression. However, longitudinal studies (as reviewed in a later
section) reveal that children who exhibit relatively high levels of the mild forms of aggression
common in childhood are more likely than other children to engage in more severe forms of
aggression in adolescence and adulthood. Similarly, methodological research designed to
test the generality of laboratory measures of aggression (e.g., Anderson & Bushman,
1997; Carlson, Marcus-Newhall, & Miller, 1989) has demonstrated that high levels of the mild
forms of aggression typical of laboratory studies correlate well with each other and with more
extreme forms of physical aggression measured in real-world contexts. Consequently,
experiments on media violence add significantly to understanding of the causal effects of
media violence on aggression, and are especially valuable when their findings are integrated
with the results of more naturalistic surveys and longitudinal studies dealing with serious
forms of physical aggression and violence. In other words, no single methodological
approach can provide unequivocal answers to the key questions about media violence, but
converging results from studies using multiple methodologies can enhance confidence in the
validity of the conclusions drawn. This triangulation approach to science is effective precisely
because different methodologies have different inherent strengths and weaknesses, and
converging results essentially rule out competing alternative explanations (e.g., Anderson &
Bushman, 2001).