Television “Violence” and Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

The role of television viewing in the etiology and exacerbation of aggressive behavior has been a topic of controversy for many years, and popular sentiment supports a causal link between viewing “violent” content and behaving aggressively. To better understand television's effect on children who meet public school criteria for emotional disturbance (ED), the authors conducted a 10-year program of research into their television viewing habits, comprehension of and reactivity to aggressive- and nonaggressive-content material, and responsiveness to a viewing skills curriculum. Research findings showed that children with ED viewed relatively large amounts of violent material, preferred aggressive characters, and were more likely to believe fictional content to be true. However, they were no more likely to behave aggressively in naturalistic social situations following the viewing of aggression-laden material than nonaggressive content. A curriculum designed to enhance viewing skills did increase knowledge but did not appear to have a measurable effect on overt behavior.