Desensitisation, Disinhibition & Cognitive Priming in Aggression (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Desensitisation

• Desensitisation occurs when repeated exposure to something previously disturbing, such as violence or aggression, results in a reduced emotional reaction

  • What once triggered fear, discomfort, or moral aversion becomes perceived as ordinary or acceptable

• Desensitisation is psychological as well as physiological, as repeated exposure to violent media promotes the belief that using aggression is a method of resolving conflict that is socially acceptable

  • Negative attitudes towards violence weaken, less empathy is felt for victims, and their injuries are minimised and dismissed (Funk et al., 2004)

• Over time, frequent exposure to violent media, including certain video games, can cause individuals to become less emotionally reactive to violence

  • This can lead to a numbing effect, where acts of aggression are no longer seen as shocking or morally wrong, and empathy for victims of violence may decrease

• Weisz & Earls (1995) showed participants the feature film Straw Dogs, which contains a prolonged and graphic rape scene, and compared them with participants who watched a non-sexually violent film

  • Male viewers of Straw Dogs showed greater acceptance of rape myths and sexual aggression, felt less sympathy towards the rape victim in a subsequent mock trial, and were less likely to find the defendant guilty, with no such effect for female participants

Research which investigates desensitisation & aggression

• Brockmyer (2021) - A review article which concluded that exposure to violent computer games increases the risk of desensitisation to violence, which in turn may increase aggression and decrease prosocial behaviour

• Carnagey et al. (2007) - Participants who played a violent computer game for 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute video of real-life violence had a lower heart rate and galvanic skin response than participants who played a non-violent computer game; thus, the violent game may have produced physiological desensitisation to violent content

Disinhibition

• Most people hold the view that violence and aggression are antisocial and harmful, so there are powerful social and psychological inhibitions against using aggression to resolve interpersonal conflicts, which are learned directly and indirectly through social learning

  • According to the disinhibition explanation, these usual restraints are loosened after exposure to violent media

• Disinhibition may involve the breaking of social norms that may well be learned from the behaviour exhibited by role models (e.g. celebrities, sportspeople, the government)

• Consumption of mass media in the form of TV, films, gaming, news channels, and social media may have a disinhibiting effect on an individual, particularly if that consumption includes a lot of violent and aggressive content, e.g.,

  • A teenage boy who thinks that violence is an acceptable way to deal with problems, because this is how his favourite film character behaves

  • A woman who is openly hostile to asylum seekers because of derogatory comments she reads almost every day in her newspaper

• Aggressive behaviour is often made to appear normative and socially sanctioned in violent media, especially if it portrays the effects of violence on victims minimally and suggests the violence is justified

  • It is not unusual for video games to show violence being rewarded at the same time as its consequences are minimised or ignored, which creates new social norms in the viewer

• One of the major factors in the continuing existence of disinhibition is that media sources often portray aggression and violence as positive acts that are rewarded, so the message is: ‘It’s fine to be violent because look at the benefits!’

Research which investigates disinhibition & aggression

• Berkowitz & Alioto (1973) found that participants who saw a film depicting aggression as vengeance gave more fake electric shocks of longer duration to a confederate

  • This suggests that media violence may disinhibit aggressive behaviour when it is presented as justified, because vengeance is a powerful justification for violence and justified violence is more likely to be seen as socially acceptable

• Josephson (1987) – A naturalistic observation of grade 2 and 3 boys during a game of floor hockey found that naturally high-aggressive boys played hockey more aggressively after watching a violent TV programme compared to low-aggressive boys who had watched the same violent TV programme

Cognitive priming

• Cognitive priming refers to how environmental cues work to trigger aggression 

• Huesmann (1998) claims that repeated viewing of aggressive media provides the viewer with a script about how violent situations may 'play out', which is stored in memory so we become 'ready' or primed to be aggressive

  • The process is mostly automatic, as it can direct our behaviour without us even being aware of it, and the script is triggered when we encounter cues in a situation that we perceive as aggressive

• Fischer & Greitemeyer (2006) investigated the priming of aggressive scripts in memory by having male participants listen to songs featuring aggressively derogatory lyrics about women

  • Compared with participants who listened to neutral lyrics, they subsequently recalled more negative qualities about women and behaved more aggressively towards a female confederate, and the procedure was replicated with female participants using 'men-hating' song lyrics with similar results

Research which investigates cognitive priming

• Leyens & Dunand (1991) – male participants were told that they would watch a violent or a neutral film and were then told to give (fake) electric shocks to a confederate: the participants who were primed to watch a violent film gave higher levels of electric shocks than those in the neutral-film condition

• Bushman (1998) - participants who watched a violent video had faster reaction times to aggressive words than those who had watched a non-violent video 

Evaluation of desensitisation, disinhibition & cognitive priming

Strengths

• Bushman & Anderson (2002) argue that someone who habitually watches violent media accesses stored aggressive scripts more readily, meaning they are more likely to interpret cues as aggressive, resort to a violent solution and fail to consider the alternatives

  • This provides a possible means by which violent media could trigger aggressive behaviour, and suggests effective interventions could reduce aggression by challenging hostile cognitive biases and encouraging habitual viewers to consider alternatives such as humour or negotiation

• An awareness of cognitive priming could be used to promote prosocial behaviours or attitudes in computer gaming, e.g., introducing weaponless combat games and emphasising resolution rather than conflict

Limitations

• Krahé et al. (2011) showed participants violent and non-violent film clips while measuring physiological arousal using skin conductance, and found that habitual viewers of violent media showed lower levels of arousal as they watched the violent clips

  • However, lower arousal was correlated with unprovoked (proactive) aggression only, so desensitisation may not explain the impact of violent media exposure on all forms of aggressive behaviour

• An alternative explanation for the effects Krahé found may be catharsis, as the psychodynamic theory that viewing violent media acts as a safety valve allowing people to release aggressive impulses without the need to behave violently

  • This would also account for lower physiological arousal in habitual viewers, so it is not clear that desensitisation is the correct interpretation of the finding

Issues & Debates

• These theories suggest that repeated exposure to violent media determines aggressive responses (e.g. via priming or disinhibition)

  • This implies behaviour is automatic and not under conscious control

  • This challenges the notion of free will, as individuals may act aggressively without realising they’ve been influenced

• These ideas are socially sensitive, as they may lead to public concern over media consumption, especially among young people

  • They also risk demonising gamers or TV viewers without sufficient evidence, which can cause moral panic or unjustified censorship