Social learning authors pointed out that people behave in a way to imitate the pattern which they evaluate as having high social status or success. The present research was designed to assess the influence of violent films on children and adolescents’ aggressive behavior. Experiment I studied 360 adolescents, of both genders, in four groups: one was a control group and the other three watched violent films, with and without a hero, and a nonviolent film. Aggressive behavior was measured in a football game after they had watched the films. Experiment II recorded the aggressive behavior of 160 children, both genders, during a football game, before and after watching a violent and a nonviolent film. The results showed that aggressive behavior of male children and adolescents increased after they had watched the violent film with a hero. This effect was not observed with females. Still, when violence involved sexual, psychological, or physical abuse there was a significant increase in aggressive behavior of both genders. This variable showed positive correlations with antisocial behavior and needs more investigation in the future.
Violent films; aggressive behavior; children and aolescents
