Page 301 - The Social Animal

Human Aggression 283

The Numbing Effect of TV Violence and Video Games It
seems to be the case that repeated exposure to painful or unpleasant
events tends to have a numbing effect on our sensitivity to those
events. Recall the example with which I opened this chapter: How I
had become so accustomed to the wanton killing in Vietnam that I
found myself actually being casual about it when I described it to my
young son. There is good evidence that this is a general phenome-
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non. In one experiment, Victor Cline and his colleagues measured
the physiological responses of several young men while they were
watching a rather brutal and bloody boxing match. Those who
watched a lot of TV daily seemed relatively indifferent to the may-
hem in the ring; they showed little physiological evidence of excite-
ment, anxiety, or the like. They treated the violence in a lackadaisical
manner. On the other hand, those who typically watched relatively
little TV underwent major physiological arousal. The violence really
got to them.
In a related vein, Margaret Thomas and her colleagues demon-
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strated that viewing television violence can subsequently numb peo-
ple’s reactions when they are faced with real-life aggression. Thomas
had her subjects watch either a violent police drama or an exciting
but nonviolent volleyball game. After a short break, they were al-
lowed to observe a verbally and physically aggressive interaction be-
tween two preschoolers. Those who had watched the police show
responded less emotionally than those who had watched the volley-
ball game. It seems that viewing the initial violence served to desen-
sitize them to further acts of violence; they were not upset by an
incident that should have upset them. Although such a reaction may
protect us psychologically from upset, it may also have the unin-
tended effect of increasing our indifference to victims of violence and
perhaps rendering us more accepting of violence as a necessary as-
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pect of modern life. In a follow-up experiment, Thomas took this
reasoning a step further. She demonstrated that college students ex-
posed to a great deal of TV violence not only showed physiological
evidence of greater acceptance of violence but, in addition, when sub-
sequently given the opportunity to administer electric shocks to a fel-
low student, administered more powerful electric shocks than those
in the control condition. There is clear evidence that similar effects
occur among individuals who play violent videogames. 86