Impact of media violence on aggressive attitude for adolescents

Abstract

The goal of this study was mainly to examine the impact of media violence on aggressive attitude among Chinese adolescents by using a modified STROOP task. 74 adolescents participated in this study, 37 were assigned to violent movie group and 37 were assigned to non-violent movie group. The results showed significant Movie Type and Trait Aggressiveness interaction, and adolescents with high aggressiveness (HA) had a significantly higher aggressive attitude than adolescents with mild aggressiveness (MA) and low aggressiveness (LA) after watching violent movies. Furthermore, the relation between significant Movie Type and Gender interaction was also found, and boys showed a significantly higher aggressive attitude than girls after watching violent movies. This implied that violent movies could effectively affect aggressive attitude for adolescents in China.