Evaluating aggression: School students' responses to television portrayals of institutionalized violence

The study set out to examine the responses of children and adolescents to six televised excerpts selected from different genres but all raising questions about the appropriateness of violence within the context of various social institutions. Students ranging in age from 9 to 16 years each saw one 20-minute excerpt. Their attitudes to aggression were assessed from their choice of appropriate situational responses when presented with sets of behavioral options to scenarios created in the programs. No single pattern of age, social class or gender differences was found. Younger subjects were more likely than older subjects to endorse authority positions whether these were accepting or rejecting of violence. Middle-class and female subjects were generally more rejecting of violence, but this pattern was reversed in response to the portrayal of violence during an industrial dispute. The findings supported a subcultural and context-dependent interpretation of audience evaluation of televised violence.This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council.Received Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of New England, New South Wales, Australia. Research interests are in the area of children and adolescent understandings of television.     

The dynamite charge

When juries report they are deadlocked, judges may deliver a supplemental instruction known as thedynamite charge which urges jurors to reexamine their views in an effort to reach a unamimous verdict. To examine the impact of this instruction, 72 mock jurors were led to believe they were participating in a controlled deliberation by voting and passing notes. Subjects were randomly assigned to the majority or minority faction of a 3-to-1 split. After the third round of deliberation, half the subjects received the dynamite charge, half did not. Results provided support for the hypothesis that the dynamite charge causes jurors in the minority to feel coerced and to change their votes and encourages those in the majority to exert increasing amounts of social pressure. These findings are discussed for their practical implications, limitations, and directions for further research.We would like to thank Rebecca Buchanan and Craig Gangi for their role as experimenters in a pilot study.     

Juror interpretations of ambiguous evidence

In the context of a mock jury study, we tested the hypothesis that people's interpretations of ambiguous evidence depend on how (i.e., by whom) that evidence is introduced. Subjects watched a 45-min interrogation of a murder suspect who emphatically asserted her innocence but told an imperfect story. Before the tape, subjects read either the prosecution or defense lawyer's arguments concerning the suspect's interrogation performance; after the tape, they read counter-arguments from the opposing side. Results indicated that subjects high in the need for cognition (NC) were influenced more by arguments that preceded the evidence, whereas low-NC subjects were more influenced by arguments that followed the evidence. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.