EMOTIONALLY-DISTURBED CHILDRENS REACTIONS TO VIOLENT MEDIA SEGMENTS

This study examined the reaction of children with a diagnosed disrupti ve behavior disorder (DBD) to violent movie scenes. Children without o ne of these disorders were tested as well. DBD children ranged in age from 8 to 12 years and were outpatients at The University of Kansas Me dical Center's Department of Child Psychiatry. These children were dia gnosed by a child psychiatrist as meeting Diagnostic and Statistical M anual of Mental Disorders (4th edition) (American Psychiatric Associat ion 1994) (DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria for having at least one of thre e emotional disorders: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) , oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD). Resu lts showed that the disordered children differed from the nondisordere d children on several dimensions. This suggests that DBD children proc ess the anti-social messages in violent movies differently from childr en without a psychiatric disorder. An unabated diet of antisocial medi a could have harmful effects on children with a psychiatric illness.