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Personality and perceptions of harmful and harmless TV violence
Person. indwid. DiA: Vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 665-610, PrInted in Great Britain. All rights reserved
PERSONALITY
1983
0191.8869/83X3.00
f0.00
Copyright 0 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd
AND PERCEPTIONS OF HARMFUL HARMLESS TV VIOLENCE BARRIE IBA, 70 Brompton
Road,
AND
GUNTER London
(Received 20 January
SW3 lEY,
England
1983)
Summary-A study was carried out to examine viewers’ perceptions of violent TV portrayals characterized by different degrees of observable harm to victims and by different programme settings. These perceptions were also related to viewers’ personality scores on the EPQ. A panel of 40 individuals rated 18 brief TV scenes depicting violence in American crime-detective or science-fiction settings which resulted in fatal or non-fatal injury, or no observable harm to victims. Results showed that harmful violence was rated as significantly more serious than harmless violence in American crime-detective settings, but that the perceived consequences of violence were less salient discriminating attributes of content in science-fiction settings. There were also individual differences in ratings in that older people and lower P scorers tended to perceive harmful violence as more violent, frightening and likely to disturb others than were younger people with higher P scores.
INTRODUCTION Eysenck
and Nias (1978) argued
behavioural impact
of for a could function example, viewers were portrayal with or harmful or outcome (Goranson, produce empathic response the part intimidated viewers, the other inhibitory responses that the inhibits aggression (Feshbach,
of the
media violence that the outcome an important of viewers’ For to become agressive after a violent for a than following portrayal with pleasant Hartmann, 1969). intense pain may viewers, it which serves inhibit aggression. anger serves raise the for developing of a suffering enhances than and Bitter, Hartmann, 1969). another 665
BARRE GUNTER
666
study, children were more disturbed by violent episodes in which injured victims were seen than by episodes which featured no observable harm to any of the actors (Noble, 1975). Although focussing on behavioural responses subsequent to viewing media violence, these experiments may also indicate some degree of perceptual differentiation of violent incidents by viewers on the basis of the outcome of violence for those who are victimized. The current study is one of a series concerned with assessing viewers’ perceptual responses to different kinds of TV violence as a means of developing a viewer-based system of classifying and defining the seriousness of violent portrayals. This experiment compared viewers’ perceptions of violent episodes from a number of TV action-dramas which depicted fatal, non-fatal injurious and no observable consequences for victims. The investigation also considered the significance of personality differences as mediators of viewers’ perceptions of these three types of violent portrayal, and related viewers’ scores on the EPQ to their TV ratings.
METHOD
Design and materials Eighteen brief TV scenes were viewed and rated by a panel of ordinary viewers. Each scene was selected in accordance with Gerbner’s (1972) definition of violence which he employed in his annual content analysis of violence on American prime-time network TV drama programming: “
. . the overt expression of physical force against against one’s will on pain of being hurt or killed
self or other, impelling action or actually hurting or killing.”
(P. 31) Each scene was 40-70 set long and portrayed a complete violent action sequence which was not joined or terminated part of the way through an aggressive interaction. The scenes were taken from two categories of programmes-American-produced crime-detective series (e.g. Kojak, Mannix, Starsky and Hutch) and science-fiction series (e.g. Buck Rogers, Star Trek). There were 9 scenes per programme category; 3 per category depicted fatal violence in which a victim was killed, 3 showed violence resulting in non-fatal injury and 3 portrayed no observable harmful consequences. The violence in the latter scenes was of the same type as that in those depicting harm; the essential difference was that in the no-consequences portrayals no effects of violence on intended victims were depicted. In fact, all scenes depicted shooting incidents between forces of good (or justice) and forces of evil or criminality, in which ‘good’ retaliated or reacted in self-defence against violence instigated by ‘evil’. All programmes from which the scenes were taken had been broadcast on one of the three major TV networks in the U.K. (BBCl, BBC2 or ITV) during peak viewing hours (7 p.m. to 11 p.m.) between 3 and 6 months prior to the experiment. The TV scenes were played in a randomly-ordered sequence on a Sony VHS videocassette recorder and relayed in monochrome over three TV monitors placed about 2 m apart at the front of a small lecture theatre. Each scene was rated along eight 7-point evaluative scales-Violent, Realistic, Exciting, Humorous, Likely to Disturb People in General, Suitable for Children, Frightening, and Personally Disturbing. Response choices ranged from “not at all.. . ” (1 point) to “extremely.. .” (7 points) for each scale. The scales were selected to reflect a variety of different judgements about TV violence other than simply how ‘violent’ different portrayals seemed to viewers. Ss were also given a questionnaire on personal details (e.g. sex, age, socio-economic class and age when full-time education finished) and the EPQ to complete. Responses on these forms were related to Ss’ perceptions of violent TV portrayals.
Subjects Forty ordinary members of the public were recruited from Oxford and surrounding districts and were paid to take part in a series of experimental sessions carried out on several days spread over a 2-month period during the summer of 1981. This panel was not representative of the general population, but nevertheless consisted of a heterogeneous mix of people who included housewives, factory workers, university technicians, school teachers, students and retired and unemployed persons. In percentage terms, 45:/o were men and 55% were women. Broken down by age, 3 1% were
Personahty
and perceptions
of harmful/harmless
667
TV violence
15 to 24-yrs old, 29% were 25- to 34-yrs old, 25% were 35- to 54-yrs old and 15% were over 55 yrs; by social class, 43% were professional, middle class, 43% were skilled, working class, and 14% were semi- and unskilled, working class; and finally by education, 20% had finished full-time education by 15 yrs, 35% by 18 yrs, and 45% were graduates or held similar professional qualifications obtained through full-time education which had not finished until at least 21 yrs. Procedure
The experiment was run in 2 sessions each of approx I-hr duration in the morning and afternoon of the same day. Ss were seated so that they had an unobstructed view of one of three monochrome TV monitors. The volume of each monitor was adjusted at the beginning of each session to ensure that all viewers could comfortably hear any dialogue in the TV scenes. The sessions began with the author explaining to Ss that they would be shown a series of short clips taken from a number of TV programmes broadcast during the last few months on British TV. They would see these scenes one at a time and judge each one separately along the scales provided. Ss were asked not to dwell too long when making their judgements but at the same time they should try to be as honest as possible about their ratings of each TV scene, At the end of each scene the videotape was stopped and Ss made their ratings of it. After 2 min, the experimenter asked whether anyone had not yet completed their ratings for the preceding scene, by which time most Ss usually had done so. Then, when all Ss were ready, the next scene was played. When half of the scenes had been rated in each session, a IO-min break was taken to alleviate the build-up of fatigue effects or boredom with the rating test. During this period, Ss were allowed to leave the lecture theatre briefly to obtain refreshments.
RESULTS A series of Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks tests were computed to compare ratings for each type of violent scene on each scale. Table 1 summarizes these results which reveal a number of significant differences in viewers’ judgements of violent portrayals depicting varying degrees of harm to victims. In general, these findings indicated that scenes depicting fatal or non-fatal injury to victims were perceived as significantly more serious (i.e. more violent, frightening, personally disturbing, likely to disturb others, less suitable for children and less humorous) than scenes which portrayed no observable harmful consequences. There were no differences in the perceived realism of these violent forms, however, and no consistent trends between perceived seriousness and how exciting scenes were judged to be. Scenes were taken from two categories of programming, American crime series and sciencefiction series, and previous research has revealed differences in viewers’ perceptions of violent content from these programme settings (Gunter and Furnham, 1983). Gunter (1983) has reported that other properties of violent scenarios, such as character types and physical forms of violence, mediate viewers’ judgements of TV violence, but also that these factors may be more significant in some programme settings than in others. Hence, further comparisons of the judged seriousness of violence in relation to the degree of observable harm it caused were made within each programme category. Further Wilcoxon tests were computed on the data for each programme type. Mean ratings for each form of violence within programme categories and statistically-significant differences between
Table
Consequences violence
I. Mean
ratings
of TV violence
as a function
of
Fatal Non-fatal injury No observable harm
Violent
Realistic
4.4” 4.6” 3.6
2.2” 2.2” 2.2”
Frightening
of degree of observable
Personally Disturbing
2.4” 2.5” 2.1
Scale range: maximum score = 7; minimum score = I. Scores with common superscripts are not significantly different
1.9” 2.0” I.6
Likely to Disturb People in General 2.5” 2.4” 2.1
at the P < 0.05 level.
harm
suffered
Suitable for Children 3.3” 3.3” 3.6
by victims
Exciting 3.3” 3.6 3.3”
Humorous 1.6 2.2” 2.1”
BARRIEGUNTER
668 Table 2. Mean ratings
Consequences violence
of TV violence as a function
of degree of observable
of Violent
Fatal American crime Science fiction Non -fatal injury American crime Science fiction No observable harm American crime Science fiction Scores with common
Realistic
Personally Disturbing
Frightening
harm suffered by victims and programme
Likely to disturb People in General
Suitable for Children
Exciting
setting
Humorous
5.5” 3.3’
3.2” 1.3b
3.0” 1.7b
2.3” 1.4b
3.3” 1.7b
2.6” 3.9b
3.Sab 2.9’
1.2 1.9
5.7” 3.Sb
3.2” 1.2b
3.3” 1.6”
2.5” 1.4b
3.2” I .6”
2.6” 4.0b
3.9” 3.3d
1.5” 2.9b
4.0 3.2’
3.1” 1.2b
2.6 1.7b
1.8
I .4b
2.5 1.8b
3.2 3.0b
3.6b 3.0’d
1.5” 2.7b
superscripts
are not significantly
different
at the P < 0.05 level.
these ratings are summarized in Table 2. Results indicated that the importance of the degree of observable harm to a victim in audience appraisals of violent scenes depended on the programme setting. American crime scenes generally were rated as significantly more serious than any science-fiction scenes regardless of the degree of harm depicted in a violent portrayal. One reason for this may be the fact that crime scenes were generally perceived as more realistic than violent episodes occurring in futuristic science-fiction contexts. However, harmful violence was rated more consistently as significantly more serious than harmless violence in American crime settings than in science-fiction settings. Indeed, in the latter, the consequences of violence had a largely non-significant impact on audience perceptions of programme content. One exception to this latter finding was the perception that non-fatal injurious portrayals in science-fiction contexts are more violent than portrayals depicting no observable harm. It is possible then that viewers are more sensitive to the effects of violence in realistic dramatic contexts than in settings divorced from contemporary reality. In order to assess the independent effects of personality variables on perceptions of different forms of TV violence, a series of 8 canonical correlations were computed; 1 per scale. In these analyses, demographic information about viewers together with their scores on the N, E and P dimensions of the EPQ were entered as independent variables and ratings of violent scenes were entered as dependent variables. Table 3 shows that significant canonical variates emerged for 4 scales only-Violent, Frightening, Likely to Disturb People in General and Humorous. These variates were interpreted in terms of the strongest loading items on them (Levine, 1977). Canonical correlations indicated that harmful violence (fatal and non-fatal forms) were perceived as less violent by younger people and higher P scorers. Harmful violence was rated as
Table
3. Canonical
correlations
of personality
factors
and demographics violence
Violent Demographics Sex Age Class Education Personalily factors N E P Consequences of violence Fatal Non-fatal injury No observable harm Multiple correlation Significance level
0.05 -0.76 -0.05 - 0.44
coefficient P:
with perceptions
and harmless
Likely to Disturb people in General
Humorous
0.33 0.66 0.04 0.04
0.27 0.67 0.03 0.15
-0.19 -0.58 0.45 0.44
0.12
0.11 0.03 _ -0.26
0.23 0.25 0.31
0.95
Frightening
-
of harmful
-0.11 -0.18 0.31
0.17 -0.37
-0.81 -0.41 0.24
0.40 1.40 -0.49
_ 0.49
0.61 1.66 -0.43
0.55 0.01
0.56 0.05
0.46 0.05
0.55 0.01
0.50
TV
Personality
and percepttons
of harmful/harmless
TV violence
669
more frightening and more likely to disturb people in general by older viewers and lower P scorers, whilst harmless violence was rated as less likely to disturb others by these viewers. Finally, younger people with somewhat higher N, E and P scores were more likely than the average panel member to perceive some humour in scenes depicting harmful violence. DISCUSSION
The main aims of this experiment were to investigate the effects of degree of observable harm suffered by victims in TV portrayals on viewers’ judgements of the seriousness of TV violence, and then to see in what ways if any perceptions of different forms of violence were related to personality. Previous research had shown that viewers make highly discriminating judgements about violent portrayals on the basis of programme setting (Gunter and Furnham, 1983). The current experiment supported those findings and extended them to reveal further attributes of TV violence which affect viewers’ judgements in particular types of programmes. It was found that the degree of observable harm suffered by victims is a salient and important factor underlying viewers’ perceptions of the seriousness of TV violence in contemporary dramatic settings. This feature, however, seems to be much less significant in futuristic settings that are well distanced from everyday reality. These findings have important practical implications for the monitoring of violent content on TV in that they indicate the need to apply different weightings of intensity or of seriousness to violent portrayals characterized by different attributes. It is obvious from these results that a single, normative definition of violence which would weight all the portrayals used in this study as equally violent (e.g. Gerbner, 1972), does not reflect even remotely the way TV violence is interpreted by the audience. A classificatory framework is required which takes into account the most salient features of violent portrayals for the audience when categorizing programme content as serious and therefore in need of careful control, or as less serious. Another important aspect of content control, especially for a system of censorship based on audience perceptions, is the extent to which viewers differ in their perceptions of violent portrayals. Although personality scores in this experiment were neither as consistently nor as powerfully related to violence ratings as they were in a previous study reported by Gunter and Furnham (1983) a few interesting relationships did emerge within the current data which are worth mentioning. Age and psychoticism were the most closely related of the individual difference factors to perceptions of TV violence here. Younger and more toughminded individuals were less concerned about harmful violent portrayals than were older and more tenderminded people. There was no indication in this study of a relationship between neuroticism and perceived seriousness of TV violence perhaps because even if injury and death are not shown, such consequences of violence may still be imagined by viewers. This suggests perhaps that certain personality factors may be more important as mediators of viewers’ perceptions of violent portrayals characterized by particular attributes but not by others (e.g. neuroticism and perceptions of violence as a function of programme settings, but not in relation to degree of harm to victims), Further investigations are currently underway which are designed to reveal yet more interactions between dimensions of personality and attributes of programme content which inffuence viewers’ judgements of the seriousness of TV violence. It is intended that this research will produce a comprehensive framework of relationships between viewer variables and programme variables and that this will enable precise and ecologically-valid predictions to be made about the seriousness of various forms of violent content on TV and of viewers’ likely reactions to these forms.
REFERENCES Eysenck H. J. and Eysenck S. B. G. (1975) MamAfor the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Hodder & Stoughton, London. Eysenck H. J. and Nias D. K. B. (1978) Sex, Violence and the Media. Temple Smith, London. Feshbach S., Stiles W. B. and Bitter E. (1967) Reinforcing effect of witnessing aggression. J. Res. Person. 2, 133-139. Gerbner G. (1972) Violence in television drama: trends and symbolic functions. In Television and So&l Behauiour, Vol. I: Media Content and Control (Edited by Comstock G. A. and Rubinstein E.A.). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Gerbner G. and Gross L. (1976) Living with television: the violence profile. J. Commun. 26, 173-199.
670
BARRE GUNTEH
Goranson R. E. (1969) A review of recent literature on psychological effects of media portrayals of violence. In Violence and the Media (Edited by Baker R. K. and Ball S. J.); a staff report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Gunter B. (1983) Dimensions of Television Violence. Gower, Aldershot, England. In press. Gunter B. and Furnham A. (1983) Personality and the perception of TV violence. Person. individ. Dl@ 4, 315-321. Hartmann D. P. (1969) Influence of symbolically modelled instrumental aggression and pain cues on aggressive behaviour. J. Person. sot. Psychol. 11, 280-288. Levine M. S. (1977) Canonical Analysis and Factor Comparison. Sage, Beverly Hills, Calif. Noble G. (1975) Children in From of the Small Screen. Constable, London.
PERSONALITY
1983
0191.8869/83X3.00
f0.00
Copyright 0 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd
AND PERCEPTIONS OF HARMFUL HARMLESS TV VIOLENCE BARRIE IBA, 70 Brompton
Road,
AND
GUNTER London
(Received 20 January
SW3 lEY,
England
1983)
Summary-A study was carried out to examine viewers’ perceptions of violent TV portrayals characterized by different degrees of observable harm to victims and by different programme settings. These perceptions were also related to viewers’ personality scores on the EPQ. A panel of 40 individuals rated 18 brief TV scenes depicting violence in American crime-detective or science-fiction settings which resulted in fatal or non-fatal injury, or no observable harm to victims. Results showed that harmful violence was rated as significantly more serious than harmless violence in American crime-detective settings, but that the perceived consequences of violence were less salient discriminating attributes of content in science-fiction settings. There were also individual differences in ratings in that older people and lower P scorers tended to perceive harmful violence as more violent, frightening and likely to disturb others than were younger people with higher P scores.
INTRODUCTION Eysenck
and Nias (1978) argued
behavioural impact
of for a could function example, viewers were portrayal with or harmful or outcome (Goranson, produce empathic response the part intimidated viewers, the other inhibitory responses that the inhibits aggression (Feshbach,
of the
media violence that the outcome an important of viewers’ For to become agressive after a violent for a than following portrayal with pleasant Hartmann, 1969). intense pain may viewers, it which serves inhibit aggression. anger serves raise the for developing of a suffering enhances than and Bitter, Hartmann, 1969). another 665
BARRE GUNTER
666
study, children were more disturbed by violent episodes in which injured victims were seen than by episodes which featured no observable harm to any of the actors (Noble, 1975). Although focussing on behavioural responses subsequent to viewing media violence, these experiments may also indicate some degree of perceptual differentiation of violent incidents by viewers on the basis of the outcome of violence for those who are victimized. The current study is one of a series concerned with assessing viewers’ perceptual responses to different kinds of TV violence as a means of developing a viewer-based system of classifying and defining the seriousness of violent portrayals. This experiment compared viewers’ perceptions of violent episodes from a number of TV action-dramas which depicted fatal, non-fatal injurious and no observable consequences for victims. The investigation also considered the significance of personality differences as mediators of viewers’ perceptions of these three types of violent portrayal, and related viewers’ scores on the EPQ to their TV ratings.
METHOD
Design and materials Eighteen brief TV scenes were viewed and rated by a panel of ordinary viewers. Each scene was selected in accordance with Gerbner’s (1972) definition of violence which he employed in his annual content analysis of violence on American prime-time network TV drama programming: “
. . the overt expression of physical force against against one’s will on pain of being hurt or killed
self or other, impelling action or actually hurting or killing.”
(P. 31) Each scene was 40-70 set long and portrayed a complete violent action sequence which was not joined or terminated part of the way through an aggressive interaction. The scenes were taken from two categories of programmes-American-produced crime-detective series (e.g. Kojak, Mannix, Starsky and Hutch) and science-fiction series (e.g. Buck Rogers, Star Trek). There were 9 scenes per programme category; 3 per category depicted fatal violence in which a victim was killed, 3 showed violence resulting in non-fatal injury and 3 portrayed no observable harmful consequences. The violence in the latter scenes was of the same type as that in those depicting harm; the essential difference was that in the no-consequences portrayals no effects of violence on intended victims were depicted. In fact, all scenes depicted shooting incidents between forces of good (or justice) and forces of evil or criminality, in which ‘good’ retaliated or reacted in self-defence against violence instigated by ‘evil’. All programmes from which the scenes were taken had been broadcast on one of the three major TV networks in the U.K. (BBCl, BBC2 or ITV) during peak viewing hours (7 p.m. to 11 p.m.) between 3 and 6 months prior to the experiment. The TV scenes were played in a randomly-ordered sequence on a Sony VHS videocassette recorder and relayed in monochrome over three TV monitors placed about 2 m apart at the front of a small lecture theatre. Each scene was rated along eight 7-point evaluative scales-Violent, Realistic, Exciting, Humorous, Likely to Disturb People in General, Suitable for Children, Frightening, and Personally Disturbing. Response choices ranged from “not at all.. . ” (1 point) to “extremely.. .” (7 points) for each scale. The scales were selected to reflect a variety of different judgements about TV violence other than simply how ‘violent’ different portrayals seemed to viewers. Ss were also given a questionnaire on personal details (e.g. sex, age, socio-economic class and age when full-time education finished) and the EPQ to complete. Responses on these forms were related to Ss’ perceptions of violent TV portrayals.
Subjects Forty ordinary members of the public were recruited from Oxford and surrounding districts and were paid to take part in a series of experimental sessions carried out on several days spread over a 2-month period during the summer of 1981. This panel was not representative of the general population, but nevertheless consisted of a heterogeneous mix of people who included housewives, factory workers, university technicians, school teachers, students and retired and unemployed persons. In percentage terms, 45:/o were men and 55% were women. Broken down by age, 3 1% were
Personahty
and perceptions
of harmful/harmless
667
TV violence
15 to 24-yrs old, 29% were 25- to 34-yrs old, 25% were 35- to 54-yrs old and 15% were over 55 yrs; by social class, 43% were professional, middle class, 43% were skilled, working class, and 14% were semi- and unskilled, working class; and finally by education, 20% had finished full-time education by 15 yrs, 35% by 18 yrs, and 45% were graduates or held similar professional qualifications obtained through full-time education which had not finished until at least 21 yrs. Procedure
The experiment was run in 2 sessions each of approx I-hr duration in the morning and afternoon of the same day. Ss were seated so that they had an unobstructed view of one of three monochrome TV monitors. The volume of each monitor was adjusted at the beginning of each session to ensure that all viewers could comfortably hear any dialogue in the TV scenes. The sessions began with the author explaining to Ss that they would be shown a series of short clips taken from a number of TV programmes broadcast during the last few months on British TV. They would see these scenes one at a time and judge each one separately along the scales provided. Ss were asked not to dwell too long when making their judgements but at the same time they should try to be as honest as possible about their ratings of each TV scene, At the end of each scene the videotape was stopped and Ss made their ratings of it. After 2 min, the experimenter asked whether anyone had not yet completed their ratings for the preceding scene, by which time most Ss usually had done so. Then, when all Ss were ready, the next scene was played. When half of the scenes had been rated in each session, a IO-min break was taken to alleviate the build-up of fatigue effects or boredom with the rating test. During this period, Ss were allowed to leave the lecture theatre briefly to obtain refreshments.
RESULTS A series of Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks tests were computed to compare ratings for each type of violent scene on each scale. Table 1 summarizes these results which reveal a number of significant differences in viewers’ judgements of violent portrayals depicting varying degrees of harm to victims. In general, these findings indicated that scenes depicting fatal or non-fatal injury to victims were perceived as significantly more serious (i.e. more violent, frightening, personally disturbing, likely to disturb others, less suitable for children and less humorous) than scenes which portrayed no observable harmful consequences. There were no differences in the perceived realism of these violent forms, however, and no consistent trends between perceived seriousness and how exciting scenes were judged to be. Scenes were taken from two categories of programming, American crime series and sciencefiction series, and previous research has revealed differences in viewers’ perceptions of violent content from these programme settings (Gunter and Furnham, 1983). Gunter (1983) has reported that other properties of violent scenarios, such as character types and physical forms of violence, mediate viewers’ judgements of TV violence, but also that these factors may be more significant in some programme settings than in others. Hence, further comparisons of the judged seriousness of violence in relation to the degree of observable harm it caused were made within each programme category. Further Wilcoxon tests were computed on the data for each programme type. Mean ratings for each form of violence within programme categories and statistically-significant differences between
Table
Consequences violence
I. Mean
ratings
of TV violence
as a function
of
Fatal Non-fatal injury No observable harm
Violent
Realistic
4.4” 4.6” 3.6
2.2” 2.2” 2.2”
Frightening
of degree of observable
Personally Disturbing
2.4” 2.5” 2.1
Scale range: maximum score = 7; minimum score = I. Scores with common superscripts are not significantly different
1.9” 2.0” I.6
Likely to Disturb People in General 2.5” 2.4” 2.1
at the P < 0.05 level.
harm
suffered
Suitable for Children 3.3” 3.3” 3.6
by victims
Exciting 3.3” 3.6 3.3”
Humorous 1.6 2.2” 2.1”
BARRIEGUNTER
668 Table 2. Mean ratings
Consequences violence
of TV violence as a function
of degree of observable
of Violent
Fatal American crime Science fiction Non -fatal injury American crime Science fiction No observable harm American crime Science fiction Scores with common
Realistic
Personally Disturbing
Frightening
harm suffered by victims and programme
Likely to disturb People in General
Suitable for Children
Exciting
setting
Humorous
5.5” 3.3’
3.2” 1.3b
3.0” 1.7b
2.3” 1.4b
3.3” 1.7b
2.6” 3.9b
3.Sab 2.9’
1.2 1.9
5.7” 3.Sb
3.2” 1.2b
3.3” 1.6”
2.5” 1.4b
3.2” I .6”
2.6” 4.0b
3.9” 3.3d
1.5” 2.9b
4.0 3.2’
3.1” 1.2b
2.6 1.7b
1.8
I .4b
2.5 1.8b
3.2 3.0b
3.6b 3.0’d
1.5” 2.7b
superscripts
are not significantly
different
at the P < 0.05 level.
these ratings are summarized in Table 2. Results indicated that the importance of the degree of observable harm to a victim in audience appraisals of violent scenes depended on the programme setting. American crime scenes generally were rated as significantly more serious than any science-fiction scenes regardless of the degree of harm depicted in a violent portrayal. One reason for this may be the fact that crime scenes were generally perceived as more realistic than violent episodes occurring in futuristic science-fiction contexts. However, harmful violence was rated more consistently as significantly more serious than harmless violence in American crime settings than in science-fiction settings. Indeed, in the latter, the consequences of violence had a largely non-significant impact on audience perceptions of programme content. One exception to this latter finding was the perception that non-fatal injurious portrayals in science-fiction contexts are more violent than portrayals depicting no observable harm. It is possible then that viewers are more sensitive to the effects of violence in realistic dramatic contexts than in settings divorced from contemporary reality. In order to assess the independent effects of personality variables on perceptions of different forms of TV violence, a series of 8 canonical correlations were computed; 1 per scale. In these analyses, demographic information about viewers together with their scores on the N, E and P dimensions of the EPQ were entered as independent variables and ratings of violent scenes were entered as dependent variables. Table 3 shows that significant canonical variates emerged for 4 scales only-Violent, Frightening, Likely to Disturb People in General and Humorous. These variates were interpreted in terms of the strongest loading items on them (Levine, 1977). Canonical correlations indicated that harmful violence (fatal and non-fatal forms) were perceived as less violent by younger people and higher P scorers. Harmful violence was rated as
Table
3. Canonical
correlations
of personality
factors
and demographics violence
Violent Demographics Sex Age Class Education Personalily factors N E P Consequences of violence Fatal Non-fatal injury No observable harm Multiple correlation Significance level
0.05 -0.76 -0.05 - 0.44
coefficient P:
with perceptions
and harmless
Likely to Disturb people in General
Humorous
0.33 0.66 0.04 0.04
0.27 0.67 0.03 0.15
-0.19 -0.58 0.45 0.44
0.12
0.11 0.03 _ -0.26
0.23 0.25 0.31
0.95
Frightening
-
of harmful
-0.11 -0.18 0.31
0.17 -0.37
-0.81 -0.41 0.24
0.40 1.40 -0.49
_ 0.49
0.61 1.66 -0.43
0.55 0.01
0.56 0.05
0.46 0.05
0.55 0.01
0.50
TV
Personality
and percepttons
of harmful/harmless
TV violence
669
more frightening and more likely to disturb people in general by older viewers and lower P scorers, whilst harmless violence was rated as less likely to disturb others by these viewers. Finally, younger people with somewhat higher N, E and P scores were more likely than the average panel member to perceive some humour in scenes depicting harmful violence. DISCUSSION
The main aims of this experiment were to investigate the effects of degree of observable harm suffered by victims in TV portrayals on viewers’ judgements of the seriousness of TV violence, and then to see in what ways if any perceptions of different forms of violence were related to personality. Previous research had shown that viewers make highly discriminating judgements about violent portrayals on the basis of programme setting (Gunter and Furnham, 1983). The current experiment supported those findings and extended them to reveal further attributes of TV violence which affect viewers’ judgements in particular types of programmes. It was found that the degree of observable harm suffered by victims is a salient and important factor underlying viewers’ perceptions of the seriousness of TV violence in contemporary dramatic settings. This feature, however, seems to be much less significant in futuristic settings that are well distanced from everyday reality. These findings have important practical implications for the monitoring of violent content on TV in that they indicate the need to apply different weightings of intensity or of seriousness to violent portrayals characterized by different attributes. It is obvious from these results that a single, normative definition of violence which would weight all the portrayals used in this study as equally violent (e.g. Gerbner, 1972), does not reflect even remotely the way TV violence is interpreted by the audience. A classificatory framework is required which takes into account the most salient features of violent portrayals for the audience when categorizing programme content as serious and therefore in need of careful control, or as less serious. Another important aspect of content control, especially for a system of censorship based on audience perceptions, is the extent to which viewers differ in their perceptions of violent portrayals. Although personality scores in this experiment were neither as consistently nor as powerfully related to violence ratings as they were in a previous study reported by Gunter and Furnham (1983) a few interesting relationships did emerge within the current data which are worth mentioning. Age and psychoticism were the most closely related of the individual difference factors to perceptions of TV violence here. Younger and more toughminded individuals were less concerned about harmful violent portrayals than were older and more tenderminded people. There was no indication in this study of a relationship between neuroticism and perceived seriousness of TV violence perhaps because even if injury and death are not shown, such consequences of violence may still be imagined by viewers. This suggests perhaps that certain personality factors may be more important as mediators of viewers’ perceptions of violent portrayals characterized by particular attributes but not by others (e.g. neuroticism and perceptions of violence as a function of programme settings, but not in relation to degree of harm to victims), Further investigations are currently underway which are designed to reveal yet more interactions between dimensions of personality and attributes of programme content which inffuence viewers’ judgements of the seriousness of TV violence. It is intended that this research will produce a comprehensive framework of relationships between viewer variables and programme variables and that this will enable precise and ecologically-valid predictions to be made about the seriousness of various forms of violent content on TV and of viewers’ likely reactions to these forms.
REFERENCES Eysenck H. J. and Eysenck S. B. G. (1975) MamAfor the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Hodder & Stoughton, London. Eysenck H. J. and Nias D. K. B. (1978) Sex, Violence and the Media. Temple Smith, London. Feshbach S., Stiles W. B. and Bitter E. (1967) Reinforcing effect of witnessing aggression. J. Res. Person. 2, 133-139. Gerbner G. (1972) Violence in television drama: trends and symbolic functions. In Television and So&l Behauiour, Vol. I: Media Content and Control (Edited by Comstock G. A. and Rubinstein E.A.). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Gerbner G. and Gross L. (1976) Living with television: the violence profile. J. Commun. 26, 173-199.
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Goranson R. E. (1969) A review of recent literature on psychological effects of media portrayals of violence. In Violence and the Media (Edited by Baker R. K. and Ball S. J.); a staff report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Gunter B. (1983) Dimensions of Television Violence. Gower, Aldershot, England. In press. Gunter B. and Furnham A. (1983) Personality and the perception of TV violence. Person. individ. Dl@ 4, 315-321. Hartmann D. P. (1969) Influence of symbolically modelled instrumental aggression and pain cues on aggressive behaviour. J. Person. sot. Psychol. 11, 280-288. Levine M. S. (1977) Canonical Analysis and Factor Comparison. Sage, Beverly Hills, Calif. Noble G. (1975) Children in From of the Small Screen. Constable, London.