Could you find me the reference for this study, it sounds interesting.
It sounds like a fractured version of the famous study by Albert Bandura, probably the 1965 study which made it into a lot of school texts. Bandura had children watch adults beating a balloon type punching bag, then observed them when the were left alone with the toy.
This was not simply a study of modelling behavior, as it is sometimes presented, but the modelling process. The children watched adults either in real life, on film, or as cartoons. Some of the subjects were praised for the behavior, some admonished, and some not acknowledged at all. There was a positive corelation between hearing the violence praised and behaving with violence when the chance came. So the study actually focused on tuition. But Bandura did find that filmed behavior did have an impact on children.
The focus today is more on the total environment, on attitudes, technology, and market forces. And there is more of an understanding that the commentators attitudes play a role--after all, in the days before most people had a television the same claims about modelling were made about comic books. But most research does show some correlation between televised violence and attitudes about violence.
It shows the same relationship for violent
toys, btw.
™ Version 4.2