Violence in the Media
By: Marisa, Nick, Victoria, and Casey
Research Question
Among college students, is there a
relationship between violent media
and violent behavior?
Significance Statement
 This topic was done to show that the media can possibly be
pertaining to violent behavior in college students
 The media can take students away from their studies and
depending on what media it is, cause students to show
aggression
 Factors such as personality can play a huge role on whether
the media affects the student negatively
 If college students are not educated about this topic, their
studies may continue to decrease and more violence will be
found on college campuses
Literature Source 1: The influence of media
violence on youth. (Anderson)
 This study found significant evidence that media violence
increases the chances of aggressive or violent behaviors
 Linked frequent exposure to aggressive behaviors later on in
life specifically physical assaults and spouse abuse
 Short term exposure to violent television, film or videogames
increases the chance of “physically and verbally aggressive
behavior, aggressive thoughts and aggressive emotions”
 Our study agrees with this source that media violence does
increase the chances of violent behavior both in the short
term and in the long-term
Literature Source 2: Media violence, physical
aggression, and relational aggression in school
age children (Gentile, Coyne, Walsh)
 A longitudinal study of 430 3rd – 5th grade Minnesota students,
average age of a child was 9.7 years, and 49% of the students
surveyed were female, two trials were done
 Concluded that media violence exposure predicted higher verbally
aggressive behavior, more aggressive behavior in relationships,
higher rates of physically aggressive behavior, and less social
behavior
 There was a significant positive correlation between media violence
exposure hostile behavior and verbally/physically aggressive
behaviors
 This source also agrees with our thesis that there is a relationship
between violent media exposure and violent behaviors.
Literature Source 3: Personality, parental, and media influences on
aggressive personality and violent crime in young adults (Ferguson,
Cruz, Martinez, Rueda, Ferguson DE, Negy)
 Survey of 355 undergraduate students enrolled at a state university
in the South, the average age was 19.6 years old, equal amounts of
males and females were interviewed, included various races in
 Examines the effects that media violence, personality factors and
exposure to physical abuse had on the behaviors of the subjects
 Does not agree with our results because it says that the only
predicting factor of aggressive behavior was direct physical abuse.
It says that exposure to violent video games and television or family
violence were not predictive of aggressive behaviors.
Literature Source 4: A Calm View of Video
Violence (Nature)
 Research indicated that violent behavior is not simply caused by
one factor, it is a culmination of many factors including biology,
individual, family, peer, school and community factors
 Did indicate that watching abnormally large amounts of violent
television or video games may contribute to violent behaviors in
some people
 Does not completely agree with our findings because it says that
there are many contributing factors to violent behavior in humans
and it can’t be attributed to just one factor, although media
violence could contribute to the occurrence of violent behavior
Literature Source 5: The effect of video game
violence on physiological desensitization to reallife violence (Carnagey)
 Research shows that exposure to violent video games increases the amount of
aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physical arousal and aggressive behaviors.
 Study monitored heart rate and galvanic skin response of participants after
they had played 1 of 8 violent or non-violent videogames for twenty minutes
and then watched a 10 minute video of real life violence
 Studied the effects that violent media has on the desensitization of humans to
real life violence, found that those that had played the violent video game had
lower heart rate and GSR than those that played the non-violent game
 This article is consistent with the results that we had from our study because
this article talks about the desensitization of people after being exposed to
violent media, this could lead to the conclusion that because we are less
effected by the real-world violence that our behaviors could change also to
being more violent
Literature Source 6: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: A
Meta-analytic Review of Positive and Negative Effects of
Violent Video Games (Ferguson)
 Meta analysis review of articles that discuss the impact that
violent video games have on players
 Studies lacked sufficient support for the argument that
playing violent video games is associated with higher
aggression, did have sufficient evidence that playing violent
video game play increases visuospatial cognition
 This article does not agree with our results because it states
that there was not a significant relationship between
students playing violent video games and an increase in
aggressive behavior.
Literature Source 7: Is Basic Personality Related to
Violent and Non-Violent Video Game Play and
Preferences? (Chory, Goodboy)
 Participants filled out measurement papers about their personality
and their frequency of video game play and also their most
frequently played video game
 Personality type may be a good indicator of violent video game use
 Found that the more open and extroverted individuals and less
agreeable and neurotic individuals preferred to play more violent
video games
 This source indicates another factor of aggressive behavior beyond
the influence that violent media has on behavior. This shows the
inverse of our theory because it says that personality and behavior
influences whether or not a person plays violent video games not
that violent media causes violent behaviors.
Literature Source 8:Lontudinal Effects of Violent
Video Games on Aggression ( Anderson)
 This study was done to investigate if video games have the
potential to make an individual actually express increased
aggression levels
 Students completed measurement tests that calculated the
amount of time they spent playing violent video games
 The results of this experiment showed a positive correlation
between the amount of time playing violent video games and
aggression levels, therefore this relates to our findings
 Students who spent more than two hours a day playing
violent video games were more likely to exhibit violence
Pilot Test Results
 The in class pilot test gave us an idea of how our surveys were
going to be completed when we handed them out on campus
 Before handing out our surveys we adjusted the positioning
of our answer choices so a lazy college student could not just
go down the column and check all the choices
 We also rearranged our questions so there were yes/no
questions mixed throughout the multiple choice questions
Methodology
 Survey Consisted of 18 questions
 7 yes/no questions
 11 multiple choice questions
 Handed Survey out to 100 enrolled Rowan students
 Posted it on Facebook (to get students from other colleges)
 Only had 8 responses
 6 females (3 from GCC, 1 from Widner, 2 from Rutgers)
 2 males (1 from temple, 1 from William Patterson)
Methodology cont.
 Questions asked:
 Gender
 So we could compare the violence viewed between males and females
 Major and GPA
 To see the persons work ethic
 Crime, physical fight, verbal fight
 To see the person’s aggression
 Video games, internet, and shows
 Chose topics that everyday people would view
 Amount of time viewed
 To get an understanding of how much media violence the student is
exposed to
Results
 From the 100 surveyed
 63 males
 37 females
 79 were able to be used
 21 were done incorrectly (17 males, 4 females)
 74 resulted in media violence (45 males, 29 females)
 5 percent from original surveyed did not show signs of media
violence (1 male, 4 females)
Survey Results
How did we decide media violence?
 If they answered yes to 2 of the violence questions
AND
 If they spent more than 2 hours taking part in violent media
 (Similar to Anderson’s study)
Analysis of Violence
 Six percent (4 males) of the surveys that could be used were
convicted of a crime
 Forty-four percent (22 males, 13 females) of the surveys used
answered that they have been in a physical fight
 Eighty-seven percent (45 males, 24 females) of the surveys used
answered that they have been in a verbal fight
 Twenty-five percent (12 males, 8 females) have been told they have
a temper
 Eighty-nine percent (44 males, 27 females) of the surveys used
answered that they use profanity when communicating
Analysis of Violence
Analysis of Media
 Sixty-three percent (39 males, 11 females) of the surveys
included play video games and 47 percent (32 males, 5
females) of these students play more than two hours a day
 Ninety-five percent (46 males, 29 females) are exposed to
television violence and 67 percent (27 males, 26 females) of
these students watch T.V. violence for more than two hours a
day
 Eighty percent (39 males, 31 females) are exposed to violence
on the internet and 70 percent of these students are on the
internet for more than two hours a day
Analysis of Media
Discussion
 Our results showed that 5 percent of the people surveyed did
not have both requirements to be considered part of media
violence
 They were only exposed to the media for an hour or less and did
not use profanity, verbal, or physical violence
 It was shown that males are exposed to more violence and
have more violence outbreaks
 May have been because we surveyed more males
 Overall this study showed that more media violence consists
on a college campus than does not
How we can improve our study
 Go to other campuses to get a variety of college students
 Facebook did not work for the variety
 Have our questions one choice answers instead of all that
apply to avoid students checking every answer down the list
References

Anderson, C. A., Berkowitz, L., Donnerstein, E., Huesmann, L., Johnson, J. D.,
Linz, D., & ... Wartella, E. (2003). The influence of media violence on youth.
Psychological Science In The Public Interest (Wiley-Blackwell), 4(3), 81-110.
doi:10.1111/j.1529-1006.2003.pspi_1433.x

"A Calm View of Video Violence." Nature 424.6947 (2003). Academic Search
Premier. Web. 2 Mar. 2012.

Ferguson, C., Cruz, A., Martinez, D., Rueda, S., Ferguson, D., & Negy, C.
(2008). Exposure to violence and trauma: personality, parental and media
influences on aggressive personality and violent crime in young adults. Journal
of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 17(4), 395-414
References cont.
 Ferguson, C. (2009). Media violence effects: confirmed truth or just
another x-file? Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice. 9, 103-126
 Carnagey, Nicholas L. "The Effect of Video Game Violence on
Physiological Desensitization to Real-life Violence."
EBSCOhost.com. EBSCOhost.com, 17 July 2006. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.
 Anderson, Craig A. "Longitudinal Effects of Violent Video Games on
Aggression in Japan and the United States." Longitudinal Effects of
Violent Video Games on Aggression in Japan and the United States.
Pediatrics. EBSCOhost.com, Jan. 2007. Web. 07 Mar. 2012.
References cont.
 Gentile, D. A., Coyne, S., & Walsh, D. A. (2011). Media
violence, physical aggression, and relational aggression in
school age children: a short-term longitudinal study.
Aggressive Behavior, 37(2), 193-206. doi:10.1002/ab.20380
 Chory, R. M., & Goodboy, A. K. (2011). Is Basic Personality
Related to Violent and Non-Violent Video Game Play and
Preferences?. Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking,
14(4), 191-198. doi:10.1089/cyber.2010.0076