Effects of Television Violence on Children

Abstract*

The main aim of the investigation was to study the effect of television violence on forty subjects (20 boys, 20 girls ) of grade IV from a local English medium school in a 2x2 factorial design. Subjects did not significantly differ on violent behaviour or on parents' education and soci-economic status. A violent TV programme and a non-violent TV programme of 5 minutes duration in the English language were the main instruments used in the main study. Half of the subjects (10 boys, 10 girls ) were randomly assigned to an experimental group and the rest (10 boys, 10 girls) to a control group. Before the main study, rapport was developed.

All the subjects were asked to write short stories before-after TV exposure. The experimental group watched a violent television programme and the control group watched a non-violent television programme.

Results support the hypothesis that both of the sexes who watched violent TV content learned violence significantly as compared to those who watched non-violent television content.

*Abstract published in the Asian and XXXII IAAP Conference 'Emerging Horizons of Applied Psychology: Asian Perspective', February 27-29, 1996 held at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. The full paper was presented at the above conference.

For the full report please contact Alay Ahmad at the below address.