- Title: Investigating the effect of intervention style (supervision) in watching television violence on the aggression of 9-11 year old boys
- Student: Fatemeh Javadi
- Supervisor: Dr. Faramarz Sohrabi
- University: Allameh Tabatabai
- Degree: Master’s
- Major: Psychology
- Defense Date: 2007
Abstract:
Research findings show that the impact of watching violent television programs on individuals, especially children, should not be ignored. Children can receive the negative impacts of television, and these impacts can occur not only from watching aggressive content of the program, but also from watching television, the depiction of cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs. However, recent studies indicate that parents can prevent the experience of these unwanted effects by employing various intervention methods in television viewing. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of applying intervention styles and methods while watching violent programs on the level of aggression learned by children from these programs. To conduct this study, 144 boys aged 9 to 11 from one of the education districts of Tehran (District 7) were selected using cluster random sampling and studied in a factorial experimental design according to two important intervening variables: parental intervention style and socio-economic class. To measure aggression, a 31-item questionnaire was used, which was designed using the Buss and Perry Aggression Questionnaire (1992), the Buss and Durkee Revised Questionnaire (1990), and the Zahedifar Questionnaire (2000). The parental monitoring style was assessed and determined using the Bryant and Bryant questionnaire (2001), and the socio-economic class was also evaluated and determined using a researcher-made questionnaire.
The results of this study showed that although the overall aggression of children did not change at the end of 12 sessions of watching violent cartoons, its subscales, especially hostility and behavioral aggression, increased, and conversely, anger and verbal aggression decreased. Meanwhile, applying experimental intervention methods in watching violent cartoons was able to create changes in the degree to which children were affected by watching these types of cartoons. Thus, the two active and restrictive methods caused an increase in children’s aggression less than the passive method and the control group.
Aggression caused by watching violent cartoons was higher in the lower socio-economic class than in the middle class, but this effect was similar for other classes. In the subscales as well, watching violent cartoons in the lower socio-economic class caused an increase in children’s anger and behavioral aggression more than in the middle class. The aggression of children who were under passive parental intervention increased more compared to the group that was under active parental intervention, while the amount of aggression changes in other groups was similar. The results of investigating the interactive effect of experimental intervention styles and socio-economic class on aggression learned from watching violent programs confirmed that the application of restrictive and active intervention methods has been suitable for almost all socio-economic classes, but lack of supervision over watching violent cartoons can cause more harm to middle- and lower-class children. In all three upper, middle, and lower classes, for children who were under passive parental intervention, active and restrictive experimental intervention methods were more effective than the passive method and the control group.
Another result of this research was that the worst possible combination for susceptibility to visual violence was belonging to a lower socio-economic class, parents’ use of the co-viewing method, and being placed in the control group or the passive experimental method. This combination had almost the highest susceptibility to visual violence compared to other groups.