According to the Institute for the Social Research, an aggressive behavior is a learned behavior which is being taught to our children by the media violence that they are exposed to daily (Chen, 1994 p.23). In Aggression – A Social Learning Analysis, written by Albert Bandura, indicates that sometimes watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who watch television depicting violence as realistic, unpunished, and frequently repeated are more likely to imitate what they see (Bandu

Chris Boyatzis and his colleagues observed a similar effect when they showed popular children’s program “Power Rangers” to elementary school age children. “Immediately after viewing the episode, the viewers committed seven times as many aggressive acts per two-minute interval as the non-viewers” (Myers 2000, pg. 229). There are many more studies just like this that all lead to the same conclusion: “exposure to violence…led to an increase in viewer aggression (Myers 2000, pg.229).

Studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may become insensitive to violence which is confirmed by statistics, and case studies. Consequently, they tend to gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems by imitating the violence they observe on television by identifying with characters, good or bad. Children who watch television shows in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or unpunished, are more likely to imitate what they see (Bandura, p.25).

Children learn their attitude about violence by catharsis. “The catharsis hypothesis reinforces the idea that watching violent dramas enable people to release pent up hostilities (Myers 2000, pg. 227). Children learn what they see then repeat it. Viewing violence repeatedly and portrayed unrealistically becomes habitual and should be an obvious sign that should lead one to believe that it’s influence on children is negative. Whil

Some topics in this essay:
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