The Effects of Television Violence and Early Harsh Discipline on Children's Social Cognitions and Peer-Directed Aggression / Stacy L. Frazier and Others.

This study examined the additive and interactive effects of television viewing and harsh, physical discipline on children's social information processing and subsequent aggression; and the effects of heavy viewing versus permission to view violent content on children's social cognitions and aggression. Participating were 535 children and their families who were part of a 7-year longitudinal, multi-site investigation, recruited in 2 cohorts at the time of kindergarten pre-registration. Information on parental discipline and involvement and television viewing were obtained from mothers through home interviews and questionnaires in year 1. Children responded to questions during the first 4 years about a series of videotaped and cartoon vignettes designed to assess social information processing. Mothers and teachers rated frequency of aggression during years 5 through 7. Findings indicated that permission to view violence and viewing frequency were modestly positively correlated with school aggression. Television violence and harsh discipline increased the proportion of variance in aggression accounted for by harsh discipline alone, and the interaction of harsh discipline with television violence accounted for a greater proportion of the variance in aggression than harsh discipline alone. Heavy viewing did not add to the variance in aggression accounted for by harsh discipline alone. Regression analyses suggested that social information processing mediates the relationship between television viewing and aggression, but that the interaction of harsh discipline and television viewing habits influences aggression directly. Children's social cognitions partly mediated the negative effects of heavy viewing on school aggression only. (Contains seven references.) (KB)

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