L1 Developmental Approaches to Media Effects on Individuals PDF

L1: Developmental approaches to understanding media effects on individuals Monday, November 11, 2024 2:36 PM While such stories suggest an immediate, direct effect of media on the perpetrators, these highly publicized “media effects” stories may actually demonstrate more about how not to think about...

L1: Developmental approaches to understanding media effects on individuals Monday, November 11, 2024 2:36 PM While such stories suggest an immediate, direct effect of media on the perpetrators, these highly publicized “media effects” stories may actually demonstrate more about how not to think about media effects, because they oversimplify complex situations. Common beliefs media effects, misconceptions/ myths 1. Media effects are simple and direct Most are cumulative and subtle, even when designed to influence behavior. Attitudes and purchace behaviour can be altered by two or three exposures to an advertisements. Ad are presented as entertainment, those who claim that ads don't affect them are more likely to be affected. We probably fail to notice the strongest and most powerful media influences. 2. The effects of media violence are severe People know that others are commiting violent acts, but they also know that they personally have never commited any atorcities. Problem: equating (media) effects with atorcities. For everyone that picks up a gun, there a millions that don't. Largest effect of media violence: culture of disrespect. Interpersonal violence is just the endpoint on a continuum of disrespectful behavior. Media effects on aggression are most likely to arouse concerns, violent media affect us more broadly. Positive and negative emotional and physiological reactions to violent media are media effects. Many people seek this out, otherwise its boring. Violent media have many effects, emotional, psysiological, cognitive, attitudinal an behavioral effects. We may be missing more typical effects of media. 3. Media effects are obvious Absence of a direct and obvious link as evidence that no media effects should be implicated. Because the effects of violent media are usually indirect, subtle and cumulative many people argua media invluence is an easy scapegoat. People may not notise someone becoming more aggressive over time and infer that the gradual change could in part be because of violent media. Cause-effect relationships need not be obvious to be significant. Media compared to smoking, one sigarette or a lifetime (effects differ for different people). We expect media effects to be exhibited in an obvious manner, we are missing opportunities to see other less obvious and perhaps more pervasive effects. 4. Violent media affect everyone in the same way Unidimensional to be valid. Four main effects: ○ Aggressor effect: children and adults who watch a lot of violent content become meaner, more aggressive and more violent. ○ Victim effect: "…" tend to see the world as a scarier place, becoming more scared and initiate more self-protective behaviors. (carry guns, increasing ones odds of being shot) ○ Bystander effect "…" habituate to gradually increasing amounts of violence, becoming desensitized, more callous, less sympathetic to victims of violence (in both media and real life) ○ Appetite effect "…" tend to want to see more violent entertainment. The more one watches, the more one wants to watch Which people are more prone to which effects? Females more affected by the victim effect Males more affected by the aggressor, bystander and appetite effects. Unclear how to predict how any given individual will be affected by any given media violence presentation. Effects of various proximal and distal sources of inluence on where children learn their attitudes, values and patterns of behavior. Family is closest, children clearly have attitudes, values and behavior patterns shaped and modified by their families. Behaviors defined as normal in a family affect the behaviors of the individual. Norms of community affect the norms of families and individuals within it. The norms of the society affect the norms of communities, families and individuals within it. Media effects can be seen at all levels. The media can affect us not only one-on-one but also by affecting the norms, expectations and patterns of behavior of our familie and communities. Media can affect us through multiple directions at once. This makes it likely that everyone will be affected by violent media in some way, and that the effects may not be identical for all people. 5. Causality means 'necessary and sufficient' For many people causality has become oversimplified, somtehing is a cause if it can be shown to be necessary and sufficient as a precursor. This has been used to argue against the effects of media violence. Ferguson: because humans have always been violend, violent media then are not necessary precursor to violent behavior. And because many people who are exposed to media violence never commit violent behavior, violent media then are not sufficient to cause violent behavior. Pushing a rock is not sufficient to causing it to roll of a hill, pushing it was not the cause. Most complex issues of interest are multicausal, many other issues interact to determine whether the push you gave caused the rock to roll (gravity, shape, mass, friction, slope, direction, force, embeddedness) The push may have been a significant determiner or catalyst for the ultimate outcome. Media violence is likely to be one of the pushes that interacts with other forces at work. It is neither necessary nor sufficient in most cases. Proximate cause, the last action to set of a sequence of events that produces an injury. Social science want to know all the causes for behavior, media violence has been shown to increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior, it can be a cause of aggressive behavior, even if it alone is not a necessary or sufficient cause 6. Causality means immediacy Effects must be seen in short term in order to be caused by exposure, Ferguson: if media violence is a necessary and direct cause of violent behavior, a significant decline in violent crime should not be occurring unless violence in the media is also declining. Relation between amount of media violence and incidence of violence in society. Yet many causes have long-term effects, over many years of exposure there will be an effect. Centerwall: murder rate doubles 15 years after initial introduction of television to communities or countries. 15 years must elapse before the full effect is revealed, that is the time it takes for a generation to grow up with the violent media and to reacht a prime crime-committing age. If this is correct, we shouldn't expect to see immediate or short-term effects, we may miss a number of important long-term effects. 7. Effects must be 'big' to be important Not large enough effect. Fergunson: the amount of variance in violent behavior is explained by media violence between 1-10%. (note other papers report higher numbers and reason to believe they are underestimating), this effect is small and lacks practical significance. If you apply this percentage to 1 million people it is not a small effect size. If there are hundreds of reasons for violence, then any single one of them should not account for much variance. That media violence constistently appears to account for 1-10% is actually large! These persistent myths underscore the importance of thinking carefully about what the effects of media violence on individuals may be. We must understand that everyone may be affected, yet not in the same way. We must recognize that most children may be affected, although we may only notice the effects in extreme cases Developmental tasks approach Developmental task: capacity or skill that is important for concurrent and future adaptation. The basic idea is that in order for a person to adapt, there are developmental challenges that must be met. Some arise through biological maturation, others are imposed by families and society, while others arise from the developing self. (talking, attachment relationship and peer relationships) 2 purposes: Set of creteria by which to judge adaptation at any particular point in development. Provides framework for understanding how development unfolds over childhood. How does depression develop, where did it go wrong? Principles specific to developmental task approach: Hierarchy, different issues rise in importance depending on the developmental level of the child. (connection to caregiver for infant). Later tasks are contingent on the succes with which earlier tasks were negotiated. Any measure of competence is implicityly measuring the totality of adaptation that occorred prior to that measurement. Development is cummulative and builds on prior adaptation. Healthy sense of trust--> explore issuas of self-regulation. Change is possible, future developmental progress is not determined or fixed as a result of how earlier developmental tasks are organized. Succesfull negotiation of earlier tasks sets the child on probalistic pathways for future competence, these can change depending on the severity of ceontemporaneous circumstances (death). Adaptation is a dynamic process, predicted both on past hisotry and current context. Change is contrained by prior adaptation, the longer a child is on an adaptive pathway, the less likely it is that dire, current circumstances can bump the child onto a maladaptive pathway. Summary of major developmental tasks The effects that violent (or other) media may have on children and youth may be very different depending on the age of the child in question. As children face different developmental tasks, media are likely to have a greater or lesser effect depending on the specific issues the children are facing at that time. Key developmental tasts of infancy 0-12 m Attachment to caregiver(s) Regularity of patterns Transition from reflex to voluntary behavior, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and imitative learning. Expression of emotions Toddlerhood 1-2,5 Curiosity, exploration and mastery Differentiation of self from world Independence of actions, self-care and feeding Learning of language Early childhood 2,5 – 5 Learning behavioral self-contral and compliance with external rules Learning emotional self-control Learning gender roles and stereotypes Middel childhood 6 – 12 Learning how to build loyal friendships and to be accepted by peers Learning social rules and norms Adjusting to school Learning the importance of academic achievement and real-world competence Moral development Consolidating self-concept (in terms of the peer group) Adolescence 13-18 Learning to build intimate and commited friendships/realtionships Adjecutment to pubertal changes Transition to secondary schooling Developing strong an coherrent personal identity Dan nog veel uitleg over de verschillende developmental tasks. Doorlezen voor tentamen Media violence and developmental tasks example Effects of media on a child differ depending on the age. I.e. wresteling Infants: unlikely to have much effect unless parents watch these programs a lot that is interferes with their abilities to care for the infant or disrupts infant's ability to set regular patterns. Toddlers: normality of violence as a solutions and verbal and physical abuse towards women (nude women) habituation and desensitatization processes have begun. Early childhood: a number of negative effects, little self-control is displayes, words enhance problems not solve them. Male is the one in power, derogatory toward women, children may begin to see women as needing to do whatever men say they should to gain approval, such behaviors are normal or natural. Middle childhood: social norms increased importance, learn lessons about physical domination, humiliation of others as acceptable method of conflict resolution, (if they have not already habituated to this level of physical and verbal abuse and therefore do not see it at all). Competence was defined only in terms of ability to fight. Adolescence: stereotypical relation men and women, male has power and women is submissive. Physical aggression betwee sexes as acceptable and sexual. By this stage physical and verbal violence in the media will be unremarkable, a natural part of culture and mirror of society. Any immediate effects as well as long-term effects are likely to be different based on the age of the child A risk and resilience approach to development Focus on differential life experiences among children that may put them at risk for future maladaptation (risk factors) and those factors that serve to protect children from the risk exposure (protective factors) This approach helps to explain why we may see greater effect on some children than others. Exposure to media violence is likely to be a risk factor for all children. Some children may have additional risk factors that enhance the effects of media violence exposure, whereas other children may have protective factors that attenuate the effects. Risk gradients / cumulative risk model. The more risks encountered by a child, the greater the likelihood of problematic functioning. A true challenge to the developmental system comes from the interaction of multiple rusk factors, this cumulative risk process is greater than any one single-rsik factor in derailing development. Marital discord, low SES, maternal psychological distress, single parent/divorce, low maternal education and exposure to violence & genetic risk factors. These seldom occur in isolation. Personal resilience, despite exeriencing severe adversity, some children display normal or above normal levels of competence across an array of domains. Stress-resilient or invulnerable. Current thinking assumes that succesfull outcomes despite stress exposure arise out of dynamic interactions between the child and the environment. Resilience occurs as a rsult of multiple protective factors – genetic, interpersonal, contextual and societal – impinge on the child as well as interact with the child to counteract the negative effects of stress. factors such as good self-regulation, close relationships with caregivers and other adults, and effective schools are all implicated as characteristics contributing to resilience processes, ordinary magic, normal adaptive processes needed to overcome risk. Media violence Is a risk factor for aggressive behavior and other negative outcomes. Presence of this single risk factor is nog enough, with additional risk factor childdren have for aggressive behaior, the risk of that child acting violenly compounds. Each additional protective factor the risk decreases. Regular exposure to media violence might be able to shift someone about three spots on the thermometer. Regular exposure to media violence may just add enough additional risk to get a verbally aggressive individual to start pushing and shoving. These two developmental approaches have great promise for the field of media effects research, as they help us to understand why children may be affected differently by exposure to media violence, and also why even though most children will not become seriously violent from exposure to media violence, they may nonetheless be affected in an important and negative manner.