PSY 240

Lecture Outline

April 5, 2000

Topic: Violence

In today’s class, Dr. Carlston spoke about violence. He primarily focused on the effects of violent TV and videogames. Lecture began with a general discussion of the types of ways that TV misportrays the real world (e.g., females and married people are underrepresented). You should thing of the types of effects that the inaccurate depictions of TV may have on viewers. He then gave some statistics regarding the amount of violence in TV programs. Next, he discussed work concerning the study of imitation, including Bandura’s early work (e.g., Bobo doll). Finally, class ended with a discussion of the effects of video games (participatory violence) and how they may or may not be beneficial.

Key terms:

Instrumental violence

Imitation

Disinhibition

Observational learning

Response facilitation

Bobo Doll study

Johnny vs. Rocky study

Participatory violence

The Catharsis Hypothesis

Symbolic aggression