Page 302 - The Social Animal

284 The Social Animal

Why Does Media Violence Affect Viewers’ Aggression? Let
me summarize what we have been saying in this section: There are
four distinct reasons that exposure to violence via the media might
increase aggression.
1. “If they can do it, so can I.” When people watch characters on TV
expressing violence, it might simply weaken their previously
learned inhibition against violent behavior.
2. “Oh, so that’s how you do it!” When people watch characters on
TV expressing violence, it might trigger imitation, providing
ideas as to how they might go about it.
3. “I think it must be aggressive feelings that I’m experiencing.” There
is a sense in which watching violence makes the feeling of anger
more easily available and makes an aggressive response more
likely simply through priming. Thus, an individual might erro-
neously construe his or her own feeling of mild irritation as
anger and might be more likely to lash out.
4. “Ho-hum, another brutal beating; what’s on the other channel?”
Watching a lot of mayhem seems to reduce both our sense of
horror about violence and our sympathy for the victims, thereby
making it easier for us to live with violence and perhaps easier
for us to act aggressively.

The Media, Pornography, and Violence Against Women An
important and troubling aspect of aggression in this country involves
violence expressed by some men against women in the form of rape.
According to national surveys during the past 25 years, more than
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60% all rapes or attempted rapes do not involve assaults by a stranger
but rather are so-called date rapes in which the victim is acquainted
with the assailant. What are we to make of this phenomenon?
It appears that many date rapes take place because the male re-
fuses to take the word “no” at face value, in part because of some con-
fusion about the “sexual scripts” adolescents learn as they gain sexual
maturity. Scripts are ways of behaving socially that we learn implic-
itly from the culture. The sexual scripts to which adolescents are ex-
posed suggest that the traditional female role is to resist the male’s
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sexual advances and the male’s role is to be persistent. Thus, in one
survey of high school students, 95 percent of the males and 97 per-