Media Psychology PSYA4

1. Media influences on pro-
social behaviour
Positive influences such as Sesame street,
Brum and Smart

2. Pro-social behaviour
• Social learning theory – observe and imitation – banduras bobo doll
study
• Developmental factors (Empathy) – children start off being
egocentric but programmes can help them develop a sense of
empathy
• Parental mediation- e.g. a parent sits with their child while they
watch sesame street to explain what sesame street is tasking about
further to make sure the child fully understands it – discuss +
reinforcement
• Exposed to pro-social content – meta analysis (content analysis) -
making a list of all the bad things from a TV programme or all the
good things, then marking them off as you watch the programme

3. 1) Banduras social learning theory (Modelling)
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Banduras bobo study demonstrates how
children imitate aggression but, if we can
learn anti-social behaviour than why not pro
social?
We may be able to learn pro-social
behaviour as well from the TV, for example
sharing and kindness.
Social leaning isn't just about the negative
aspect people can learn like Bandura
presented.
Children are then likely to repeat the pro-
social behaviour because of positive
reinforcement, praise etc. from parents and
older siblings
 Acquiring pro-social behaviour for
example from the lassie study was
depicted step by step pro-social
behaviour
× Learning pro-social norms however
might be less common nowadays – as
the amount of pro socially aimed TV
programmes has decreased, there are
less morals in the story lines and more
battles between good and bad

4. 2) Developmental factors – Giving Empathy
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Empathy is the ability to put oneself in
another persons shoes (so to speak) and
feel the emotion that they are experiencing
Develops through childhood into
adolescence
So the age of the child will depend on their
empathy, and the influence of the media
 We presume that preschool children
would not be effected as much by pro-
social behaviour by watching it on a
screen, and that they would rather
absorb anti-social messages instead.
However Mare’s meta analysis found
that the weakest effect for absorbing
pro-social behaviour was on adolescents

5. 3) Parental Influence
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Children watch TV with a parent, some
programmes actually suggest this, for
example the programme ‘watch with
mother’ – by watching or discussing
afterwards it allows them to discuss moral
content
The results of this were that the pro-social
message can be reinforced
× Are all forms of parental mediation
effective? They may not actually watch
the programme, even if they are there.
They might not discuss the content
afterwards
× A researcher suggested that only some
forms are effective, and its only effective
when the parents discuss and explain the
content to the children for reinforcement
afterwards or else its useless watching it
in the first place
 Sesame street was designed with pro-
social aims in mind for example
interracial harmony
× However a criticism of this is that it was
only children from better socioeconomic
backgrounds who benefited most
because parents either had more time to
explain to their children or understand it
themselves and use the correct language

6. 4) Content analysis - How pro-social is TV
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TV often focuses on aggression (leads to
moral panic
Greenberg – Content analysis of popular
children's programmes in the US are
equivalent number of pro-social and anti-
social acts
Anti stereotyping:
Johnstone and Ettema – studied several
thousand 9-12 year olds. The children who
watched the programme ‘freestyle’
(designed to reduce sex role stereotypes)
became less prejudiced
 Mixed messages:
Lovelace et al found that pro-social
behaviour may come from setting pro-social
goals against anti-social goals
× However – having mixed messages can
lead to an increase in aggression for
example (the batman is violent to beat
the joker, this may confuse children,
because the good guy is supposed to do
good things to combat the bad guy)
× Pro-social and Anti-social:
Many programmes have pro-social and anti-
social messages for example the A-team,
where good guys behave violently, this
again creates mixed messages because the
good guys are using aggression to achieve
their end goal

7. Content analysis continued - Other types of media
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Mares and Woodward considered the effects of other types
of media, for example children's stories such as snow white,
reading stories over and over again reinforces a good
message ‘the good princess triumphs against the evil queen’
Mares conducted a meta analysis of research into pro-social
behaviour and the media. He found four main effects
1. Altruism (sharing and offering help)
2. Self control e.g. resisting temptation
3. Positive interaction
4. Anti stereotyping
Evidence for Altruism:
Sprafkin et al – 6 year olds watched an episode of lassie
where a child rescued a dog. They then all came across some
seemingly distressed puppies, the children who had
watched lassie spent more time comforting the puppies
than the control group who hadn't watched neutral shows
Further evidence from one of the studies Mares used in his
meta analysis:
Self control -> Researchers found that children who watched
‘Mister Rogers neighbourhood’ were more likely to preserve
with tasks and obey rules more than children who had
watched aggressive cartoons like Batman
× Again the snow white example shows
presents mixed messages for children
expecially directed towards girls
× We can criticise the altruism study
because there could have been a
number of reasons why those
particular children spent more time
with the puppies, maybe the children
who watched lassie liked dogs more
thsn the control group, some children
may have been alergic to dogs or had
a bad experience with a dog in the
past so were abit wary of being to
friend;y with the puppies