Rod- You appear to miss the point. You ask:
"Have there been well-designed experimental studies showing that there is NO causal relationship between watching television violence and engaging in aggressive behavior?" (emphasis added). Well, of course not. You can never prove the null hypothesis only choose to reject it. You also said: " I assume then that there have been been well-designed experimental studies showing that economic disparity and the prevalence of hand guns causes our children to become more violent? I don't know what kind of IRB you have at your school, but I can't imagine the proposal getting past any of ours. Think about it for a minute. You then said: " Do we only rely on the results of experimental studies and ignore the often larger body of correlational studies?" Hopefully not. A great deal can be gained from well designed correlational studies. I never said that we shouldn't look at correlational data, but rather, that we should consider effect size and variance accounted for as important determiners of where to put our efforts if we are serious about reducing violence. For example, In a recent Meta-analysis (Anderson, C. & Bushman, B. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, Physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psych. Sci. 12(5). 353-9.) report an average effect size (based on r) of .19 which would rate as a low effect. Contrast this with work such as : Wagner, A. C.;(1936) Crime and economic change in Philadelphia Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology. 27, 483-490). Where they found that: Crimes of violence, as measured by number of arrests made by police, were found to be correlated .540 with wage payments, .595 with cost of living, and .616 with volume of retail trade. For crimes against property the corresponding r's were -.066, .003, and .026. For burglary considered alone, the corresponding r's were -.940, -.922, and -.955 This is not headline news. So, where does this leave us? The way I see it we have data that suggests that there are strong factors that affect violent behaviour (economic disparity, guns, etc.) and weak or non-existent factors (TV, video games, rap music, etc.). What advice should you give to parents? Well, If a client came to me inquiring if s/he was being compulsive about disinfecting the toilet on a daily basis I would not enter into the discussion if I noticed that the house was on fire. Have a great weekend, -Don. On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Rod Hetzel wrote: > > > Rather than wondering whether to tell parents to monitor > > their kids TV viewing you might advise them to be much > > more concerned about 1. the level of economic disparity > > in the culture and 2. the prevalence of hand guns. Let's > > remember that 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. When I start > > seeing data that suggests that the effect of TV violence > > approaches this level then I'll get interested in the debate. > > > So in answer to your question I would suggest that you tell > > parents to worry about what their kids watch on TV only after > > they have made the strongest possible effort to 1. eradicate > > poverty and 2. control guns. > > With all due respect to you, Don, that seems to be giving a disrespectful response >to a very genuine concern held by many parents. The purpose of therapy is not to >patronize them with an ivory tower lecture, but to help them as they struggle with >difficult life circumstances. > > > Of course, a lot of people would prefer simpler solutions and > > it's a lot easier to blame the TV than to look for real causes. > > This statement is indeed true. And some parents will blame television programming >because they don't want to look at other causal factors that might be more complex, >difficult, and painful to discuss. Part of the role of the therapist would be to >help the parents identify and address the real causes rather than looking for a >convenient scapegoat. > > I think this is an important question for psychologists to address. How do we apply >this line of research? If there truly is no scientific evidence showing that >watching aggressive or salacious television programming *causes* harmful behavior >(and from previous posts to this list it seems that indeed there is no scientific >evidence showing causality), then 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? > > There is sometimes a great divide between ivory tower research and the concerns of >people working in the trenches. As a scientist-practitioner, I'm interested in how >scientific research can be applied to these kinds of real-life situations. Many of >my students are also interested in the application of our research. > > Rod > > ______________________________________________ > Roderick D. Hetzel, Ph.D. > Department of Psychology > LeTourneau University > Post Office Box 7001 > 2100 South Mobberly Avenue > Longview, Texas 75607-7001 > > Office: Heath-Hardwick Hall 115 > Phone: 903-233-3312 > Fax: 903-233-3476 > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Homepage: http://www.letu.edu/people/rodhetzel > > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.325 / Virus Database: 182 - Release Date: 2/19/2002 > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ******************************************************************** Don Allen email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Psychology voice: (604)-323-5871 Langara College fax: (604)-323-5555 100 W. 49th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. 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