I'll try to make this my last post on this topic for a while, though I don't promise to succeed.
On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Rod Hetzel went: > I wouldn't state to people that viewing media aggression has no > influence on children's behavior. Rather, I would state that we > don't have scientific evidence to support the idea that viewing > media aggression *causes* children to be aggressive. I agree. I wouldn't take the extreme position that mass-media violence has no influence. If I had to wager, I'd make the safest assumption--that some violent content can influence some people to some extent under some circumstances. The task ahead is to replace the "some"s with specifics, and, as Don Allen pointed out, to determine the effect size. > ... do we as ethical psychologists tell our clients that they should > not worry about what kind of television programming their children > watch because research has shown that there is no evidence to > support their worries? Or do we tell them that psychological > research has not yet conclusively demonstrated a causal link and > thus we don't know scientifically whether or not there is a causal > relationship? I'm not a clinical psychologist, but I think I'd tell them that they should discourage their children from watching violent TV if they (the parents) find it ugly and hateful. Isn't that reason enough? Must there be a scientific justification? Thanks, Herb Coleman, for the link to _On Killing_; that looks interesting. As for me, once I realized that almost all of the cites I'd posted at http://www.charm.net/~dhe/helena.html were from one book (Charlton et al., _Broadcast Television Effects in a Remote Community_), I ran out and got that book--along with its forerunner, T.M. William's _Impact of Television_. Each book decribes a community or communities in which TV is newly introduced, but the two books' findings oppose each other. After I've read them, I'll chime in again. Finally, this statement from Don Allen bears repeating: "...the US and Canada are both exposed to nearly identical TV and yet the rate of US homicide is ten times (per capita) what it is north of the border." What could account for this difference? On a political level, I strongly agree with Don Allen and Harry Avis when they advocate focusing on factors such as economic disparity and easy access to guns. But unless that advocacy is backed up with data, it _is_ political advocacy, no more scientific than some of the claims I've heard about mass-media violence. Just tryin' to be consistent here. --David Epstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
