In this essay I shall look at the meanings of media effects and violence within psychology, the different methods used to study this phenomena and the ethical issues involved in each of these methods.

The term media effects is concerned with the development of anti-social behaviours in those who are exposed to these on television, films or other types of media [1]. The definition of violence within psychology changes between pieces of research, as the issue is subjective. When looking into how much violence there is on television, Cumberbatch (1987) defined violence as ‘any action of physical force with or without a weapon against oneself or another person, animal or inanimate object, whether carried through or merely attempted and whether the action caused injury or not’ [2]. Other psychologists have used different terminologies for violence but a basic definition could be unrestrained or unnecessary force. The unclear definition of violence may weaken the research, if there are alternative behaviours being studied.

Firstly I will look at laboratory experiments whic

9.pg256 Woods, B, (1997) Discovering Psychology London:Hodder and Stoughton

As this is an emotive issue of great social importance there is the concern of social responsibility on the part of the psychologist, which is particularly highlighted in the case of the Milgram (1963) study into obedience. There is the conflict of the researcher’s responsibility towards the participant and to wider society, Milgram behaved unethically towards the participants but gained some shocking results into human nature that are deemed valuable [10]. Although the conflict is to a lesser degree with research into violent media effects it may still be a concern as the researchers are almost provoking these participants to behave violently, without concern for the long term effects on them (Bandura, Ross and Ross, and Friedrich and Stein). The results yielded from the research are obviously of vital importance to society as if there is a causal link between exposure to violent media and violent behaviours then actions can be taken to curb this. But this may not mean that researchers are justified in behaving unethically in the acquirement of results.

Some topics in this essay:
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