This essay will investigate the paper Exposure to Violent Media:
The Effects of Songs with Violent Lyrics on Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings (Anderson, Carnagey and Eubanks, 2003). The paper
claims a strong link between violent lyrics and subsequent aggression; this essay
will examine the claim. We will begin with a general definition of aggression
before looking at how it was operationally defined in the study. Next will be a
look at the papers findings. Finally, with the help of other relevant articles
the findings will be critically examined.
Aggression is an ambiguous term; in
sport and business aggression can be synonymous with relentless competitiveness.
In psychology, we describe this as ‘instrumental’ aggression; proactive rather than reactive means of attaining
some goal other than hurting the target (Anderson & Carnagey, 2004). ‘Hostile’
aggression on the other hand, is defined by Anderson and
Bushman (2002) as any conduct directed at another individual with the immediate
intention to cause harm. Furthermore, they note that the perpetrator must believe
that they will cause harm and motivate the target to avoid the behaviour. It is
this ‘hostile’ aggression that is of interest to the researchers of the article. The authors use the General Aggression Model (GAM)
developed by Anderson and Bushman (2002). This model states that any aggressive
behaviour can be categorised according to four dimensions: degree of hostile or
agitated affect present; automaticity; degree to which the goal is to harm the
victim versus benefit the perpetrator; and degree to which consequences are
considered. At the fundamental level, GAM focuses
on how aggression develops within an on-going social interaction. At this level
the model highlights three main issues: person and situation inputs, present
internal state (i.e., cognition, arousal, affect), and outcomes of appraisal
and decision-making processes (DeWall and Anderson, 2009).
In
their article, Anderson et al (2003) concluded that violent content can
increase feelings of hostility when compared with similar but non-violent rock
music. In the first experiment they took two songs by the same artist and of
the same genre; one with explicitly violent lyrics and the other with no or
minimal violent lyrics. Afterwards, they had participants complete the State
Hostility Scale (SHS); which contains statements describing current feelings
which had to be rated. However, the respondents’ results for the statement ‘I
feel wilful’ were dropped from the final result because it showed a low
item-total correlation.
The
second experiment was designed to measure aggressive cognition. It was
identical to the first experiment but instead of filling out a SHS the
participants were asked to rate out-of-7 how similar word pairs were. They
consisted of aggressive-aggressive;
aggressive-ambiguous; and ambiguous-ambiguous word pairs. The researchers hypothesised
that if violent lyrics increased the accessibility of aggressive thoughts in
the semantic memory then the aggressive-ambiguous
word pairs would score significantly higher than with the non-violent
lyrics. Their results supported their hypothesis; there was half a point
difference from the control pairs.
The
third experiment took into consideration trait hostility. First, they had the
participants complete a modified version of the Caprara Irritability Scale;
excluding those who scored at the top and bottom ends of the scale. The
recalled participants were to read aloud aggressive
and non-aggressive words on a
computer screen which had a programme measuring their reaction time for each
word. They also had to complete a SHS and two other questionnaires measuring
arousal and if the participants understood the lyrics. Significantly, the
researchers found that task order was important. Those who filled out the SHS
immediately after listening to the songs backed up the results from the first
two experiments. However, when combined with the participants who completed one
of the other tasks first the results showed no significant difference from the
control. This infers that the effects of the songs are only in the short term
and can be interrupted by other activities.
A
clear flaw in the research is that the researchers set-out to measure ‘hostile’
aggression which in its definition explicitly states that the perpetrator must believe that they will cause
harm to a target. Therefore, measuring ‘hostile’ aggression from aggressive
cognition and affect inferred from participants response to aggressive words or
‘I feel’ statements seems rather ridiculous; there is clearly no victim
involved. However, it is clear that conducting a true test of ‘hostile’
aggression by measuring the subsequent aggressive behaviour towards a target
would be difficult to attain ethically.
In conclusion, we can see that the
researchers found that listening to music with violent lyrics is likely to
prime aggressive words in the word completion test, aggressive associates in
the ambiguous word test, and lead to a higher score on the SHS. However,
evidence of priming is not sufficient to conclude that violent lyrics make
someone more aggressive. As shown in the third experiment, the effect on
hostility of listening to violent songs ‘can be disrupted fairly easily by
intervening activities’ (Anderson et al, 2003 p966)
The real world has a broad mixture of words
and ideas; as a result, individuals contextualise aggression (Savage &
Yancey, 2008) that may arise from listening to music with violent lyrics.
Rather than contradict the catharsis theory, the authors may have actually
shown evidence of how the catharsis theory works; through the contextualising
and calming down that comes soon after the initial peak of aggressive thoughts
and feelings arising from listening to violent songs. Of course, this is
speculation and more research in this direction would be required. As to the
extent that violent lyrics make someone more aggressive; the evidence suggests
that violent songs can prime aggressive thoughts and feeling in the immediacy
after listening to the song but these effects are easily disrupted. Nevertheless,
it seems apparent that if someone lacked the ability to contextualise this arising
aggression through some internal defect, from living in an overtly aggressive
environment or perhaps even partaking in an aggressive event (Felson, 1996);
the escalating effect of the violent music may in these instances be
significant in the longer term, but again, this is speculation and more
research is needed.
Words - 998
References
Anderson, C.A, & Bushman,
B.J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.
Anderson,
C.A. & Carnagey, N.L. (2004). Violent evil and the general aggression
model. In A. Miller (Ed.), The
social psychology of good and evil (pp.
168-192). New York: Guilford Press.
Anderson,
C. A., Carnagey, N. L., & Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media:
The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 960-971.
DeWall, N.C. and Anderson, C.A.
(2009) ‘The General Aggression Model’. In M. Mikulincer & P. R. Shaver (Eds.) Understanding and
reducing aggression, violence, and their consequences. Washington, DC, US:
American Psychological Association.
Felson. R.B. (1996).
"Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior." Annual Review of Sociology Volume 22: 103-128
Savage, J. & Yancey, C. (2008)
‘The Effects of Media Violence Exposure On Criminal Aggression: A
Meta-Analysis’, Criminal Justice and
Behavior; 35; 772
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