Modeling and Violence

I remember watching the “Karate Kid” movie many times over as a young boy. Right after we finished viewing the film, my brother and I would go down to our basement bedroom, dress up as martial artists, and start “lightly” hitting and kicking each other. Once in a while, one of us would get hurt. Recently, I studied an experiment and watched a video of an experiment conducted by Stanford’s Alert Bandura that studied violence and aggression in children. I must say that I was greatly disturbed! As a young boy I grew up playing with toy guns and swords, so “aggressive behavior” seemed somewhat normal to me. I thought, “That’s just the way children are.” But after viewing the video of the model showing aggressive behavior and then watching how the children reacted, it was apparent, even after just a few seconds, that the violent behavior was not just copied, but rather escalated. The children who were exposed to the violent behavior developed new ways of showing aggression towards the doll that were not modeled. And, where the model stoically demonstrated aggression, the children embraced the aggression as an enjoyable activity. I’d be interested in finding more research on the power of modeling. It seems that modeling is a powerful tool in development and learning. Teachers should be aware that their actions speak as loud if not louder than their words. And parents should be concerned about the amount and frequency that their children view violent acts on TV and in video games. I also wonder about studies that have been conducted about the affects of violent 1st person video games and their affects on children and teens. It seems to me that there would be an even greater influence on the mind when a child willingly partakes in a violent act as opposed to just viewing it.