Showing papers by "L. Rowell Huesmann published in 2010"

Nailing the coffin shut on doubts that violent video games stimulate aggression: comment on Anderson et al. (2010)

Abstract: Over the past half century the mass media, including video games, have become important socializers of children. Observational learning theory has evolved into social-cognitive information processing models that explain that what a child observes in any venue has both short-term and long-term influences on the child's behaviors and cognitions. C. A. Anderson et al.'s (2010) extensive meta-analysis of the effects of violent video games confirms what these theories predict and what prior research about other violent mass media has found: that violent video games stimulate aggression in the players in the short run and increase the risk for aggressive behaviors by the players later in life. The effects occur for males and females and for children growing up in Eastern or Western cultures. The effects are strongest for the best studies. Contrary to some critics' assertions, the meta-analysis of C. A. Anderson et al. is methodologically sound and comprehensive. Yet the results of meta-analyses are unlikely to change the critics' views or the public's perception that the issue is undecided because some studies have yielded null effects, because many people are concerned that the implications of the research threaten freedom of expression, and because many people have their identities or self-interests closely tied to violent video games.

Participation in Religious Activities as a Protective and Exacerbating Factor in the Development and Continuity of Aggressive Behavior across the Lifespan and Generations

Abstract: Regular exposure to religious activities in early childhood has been shown to have some ameliorative effects on antisocial and aggressive behavior (Huesmann et al., 2002; Ellis & Peterson, 1996). The theoretical explanations for such effects are varied including that regular church attendance is simply a marker of generally good parenting, that religious organizations provide social support when problems occur, or that religious exposure helps build strong self-regulating internal standards. In the current analysis, using data from a 40-year prospective longitudinal study, we first examine the extent to which parental religiosity when a child is 8 years old is related to the child's religiosity concurrently and 10, 20, and 40-years later. It is. Then we examine the extent to which both childhood religiosity and adult religiosity act as long-term protective factors against adult aggression and the aggression of offspring. The results reveal that frequency of church attendance is highly related to other forms of spirituality and has a statistical continuity across the life course and across three generations. More importantly, participation in religious services is generally predictive of lower aggression both concurrently and in the future through the indirect effects on future religiosity. However, the protectiveness of religiosity is limited by the youth’s already existing aggression. In particular, high religiosity seems to exacerbate the tendencies of low aggressive youth to grow up to be low aggressive adults but also exacerbates the tendency of high aggressive youth to grow up to be more aggressive. These results are discussed in terms of the potential processes that could explain the effects.