Reducing the aggression-promoting effect of violent cartoons by increasingchildren's fictional involvement with the victim: A study of active mediation
Ai. Nathanson et J. Cantor, Reducing the aggression-promoting effect of violent cartoons by increasingchildren's fictional involvement with the victim: A study of active mediation, J BROADC EL, 44(1), 2000, pp. 125-142
An experiment with 351 second through sixth graders was conducted to determ
ine the effectiveness of an active mediation strategy: encouraging children
to focus on the feelings of the victim of violence in a cartoon. Although
boys who watched the cartoon without the mediation were more aggression-pro
ne after viewing than a control group, boys who received the mediation did
not show an increase in aggressive tendencies. Neither the cartoon nor the
mediation affected girls' aggression-proneness.