Does Violence Desensitize Children?

DOES VIOLENCE IN FILM DESENSITIZE CHILDREN
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Does Violence Desensitize Children?
Emotional Desensitization is the diminishment of emotional responsiveness to a stimulus after continued exposure to it. To be desensitized means the individual has had repeated exposure of the stimulus and the action tendency to the stimulus is unnecessary. Watching violent films or playing violent video games can lead to desensitization. The first-time exposure causes a myriad of aversive responses such as increase in heartbeat, perspiration, dilation of pupils, heightened senses, etc. A prolonged exposure to the same stimulus makes the body to habituate and eventually the body does not respond by eliciting the same negative responses. At this point the individual is considered desensitized. The debate has been centered on whether being desensitized to media is mapped to real life and several researchers have designed studies attempting to answer these questions.
CITATION Gri171 \l 1033 (Grizzard, Tamborini, Sherry, & Weber, 2017) carried out research to find out whether repeated play reduces video gamers’ ability to elicit guilt. The design of the research was longitudinal hence the subjects were observed for a period of time. The researchers ought to find out whether playing video games repeatedly leads to emotional desensitization if they cause desensitization; does the desensitization be mapped to other video games and real-life experiences. The researchers designed the study in that subjects played different versions of the same violent game for 4 days. The character was either a soldier or a terrorist. On the fifth day, the participants played a novel game. The researchers found out that repeated exposure to the game decreased the ability of the game to elicit guilt. The decreased ability to elicit guild could be mapped onto other games. Thus, from the study, it is evident that repeated exposure to violent video games led to emotional desensitization. The desensitization was generalizable to future gameplay experiences.
In another study carried out by Bruce Bartholow, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Marc Sestir at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and CITATION Bra05 \l 1033 (Bushman, 2005), on media desensitization found out that exposure to violent media desensitizes the audience. The researchers took a population sample of 39 male graduates. After collecting data o how often they played their favorite video games, the researchers assessed their irritability and aggression. They were also fitted with electrode caps to obtain EEG data of a particular wave known as P300. The participants were shown neutral images (without violenc...