"An alternative perspective on the relationship between anxious and pleasant arousal may be derived from the general aggression model extended by Carnagey et al. (2007), to include desensitization. They argued that because repeated exposure to media violence reduces the anxiety reaction to violence, new presentations of violence “instigate different cognitive and affective reactions than would have occurred in the absence of desensitization” (p. 491). One such affective reaction may be a positive response to violence that would otherwise have been inhibited by anxious arousal. Huesmann and Kirwil (2007) have called this process sensitization. They argued that, for some individuals, watching violence is enjoyable, and, whereas it may provoke anger, it does not produce anxious arousal. On the contrary, the more such individuals watch violence, the more they like watching it. They are experiencing a “sensitization” of positive feelings. Because finding violence pleasant is incompatible with experiencing anxious arousal, increased pleasant arousal to depictions of violence in individuals with a high exposure to media violence would constitute indirect evidence of desensitization of “negative feelings” about violence. On the basis of this line of reasoning, we propose that anxious arousal by violent media stimuli is negatively related to pleasant arousal and that habitual exposure to media violence should both decrease negative emotional reactions and increase positive emotional reactions to violence, though the increase in positive emotions may occur for only a subset of individuals. For example, in a recent study of young adults in Poland, Kirwil (2008) found that proactively aggressive individuals tended to respond to violent media stimuli with a reduction in anxious arousal, whereas reactively aggressive individuals tended to respond with an increase in enjoyment."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Violence_in_media
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Violence in media
72 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Violence in media →
Related Quotes
"The best depictions don’t just leave it at the dramatic device of the rape itself. They use it to tell a deeper story…"
"The cinema is a peculiarly violent form of entertainment, developed in an catering for what we have come to think of …"
"It turns out that Cameron, who is known as an action filmmaker, he admits, believes that his films have often been to…"
"Attorney Cole and Linda Sue Davidson’s hypothesis that Hip-Hop music promoted actionable violence was not a standalon…"
"Though movies (Taxi Driver for John Hinckley Jr., would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan), books (The Catcher in the Rye …"
"I saw six films along with about two dozen trailers for the autumn releases. Not a single one of the trailers (not to…"
"For several years now, various groups have urged the banning of crime pictures on the ground that they influence yout…"
"I have never heard of any youngster going wrong, turning to crime, because of the movies. It simply isn't possible. O…"
"The screen renders experience both less and more real in its own right. It both mediates violence and makes it seem m…"
"In the summer of 1941 DC instituted a formal code for all its comics perhaps a response to early comic critics. The c…"