Over the years there has been a large amount of research published, many with conflicting results, to the question of a causal link existing between the viewing of televised violence and childhood aggression. It is an important question because if violent television is linked to childhood aggression we need to adapt our television shows accordingly.

Kaplan and Singer cite several studies in which viewing violence did not cause an increase in aggression. Feshbach and Singer (1971) conducted an experimental field study controlling the television viewing of nine to fifteen-year-old boys. For six weeks they were required to watch two hours of television per day. Half watched aggressive shows and half watched non-aggressive shows. Feshbach and Singer found no evidence that violence on television leads to increases in aggressive behavior. Certainly the study shows no support for the theory that viewing of aggressive television increases real life aggression (Kaplan & Singer, 1976).

Up until now the relation between television viewing habits and aggression had been shown in several experiments, but what was lacking was the ability to determine cause and effect. One possible way to demonstrate cause and effect is to use a longitudinal context (Eron, Huesmann, Lefkowitz & Walder, 1972). In Eron et al. (1972) subjects were tested over a ten-year time period for measures of aggression and predictors of aggression. Several other factors were taken into consideration in this study. They included IQ, social status, mobility aspirations, religious practice, ethnicity, and parental disharmony. The results support the hypothesis that a preference for watching violent television in the third-grade time period is a cause of aggressive habits later in life independent of the other causal contributors studied. It is not claimed that television violence is the only cause of aggressive behavior since a number of other variables are also related to aggression. However, the effect of television violence on aggression is relatively independent of these other factors and explains a larger portion of the variance than does any other single factor, which we studied (Eron et al 1972). Although a longitudinal study was used to try to apply causation no such correlation could be found. The safest conclusion was the study does not establish a causal link between television violence and aggression in one direction or another (Kaplan & Singer 1976).

But, in Banduras next experiment he begins to question if other factors are involved in the relationship between televised violence and aggression. His subjects are divided into three groups, model-reward, model-punished, and control. All view an aggressive filmed model with a task appropriate ending. The results show mere exposure to modeling stimuli does not provide sufficient conditions for imitative learning. The fact that most of the children in the experiment failed to reproduce the entire repertoire of behavior exhibit

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