Is Parental Desensitization to Violent Films a Function of Justified Violence?

• In Event: Media Violence, Agression, and Suspense

Abstract

We conducted an experiment to test the possibility that violence justification might be an important distinction in the process of desensitization to violent content. We showed 609 parents a sequence of four violent film clips. Parents viewed clips either featuring unjustified violence or justified violence. After each clip, we asked parents two outcomes that previously demonstrated desensitization: the age at which it would be appropriate to allow a child to view the film and how likely they would be to allow their own child to view the film. Contrary to expectations, age appropriateness and likelihood to allow increased after repeated exposure to violent clips. As expected, parents were more lax towards justified violence than unjustified violence. As expected, there was an interaction between repeated exposure and justification; age appropriateness increased and likelihood to allow decreased with repeated exposure in the unjustified condition but were stable in the justified condition.

Authors

• Robert Benjamin Lull, California State University, Fresno

• Dan Romer, U of Pennsylvania