Abstract
There can no longer be any doubt that television influences behavior, especially the behavior of children. Any mother who goes marketing in the supermarket with a young child sitting in the shopping cart or tagging along beside her can attest to that fact, especially when she gets to the checkout counter and sees all the sugar-coated cereals, boxes of cookies, and candy bars which in some mysterious fashion had found their way into the cart. The television networks are proud of the way in which they can influence behavior with commercials. It is ludicrous, therefore, for the networks to insist that watching violent displays on television has no relation to subsequent violent behavior of viewers. If they did not expect television to influence behavior, why would they be broadcasting commercials showing people using products they want the viewer to use? It is unlikely that one would ever hear a sales representative tell a prospective customer for television time that television does not influence behavior. That is, after all, what commercials are about and how the networks stay alive and prosper.
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© 1984 Plenum Press, New York
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Eron, L.D., Huesmann, L.R. (1984). Television Violence and Aggressive Behavior. In: Lahey, B.B., Kazdin, A.E. (eds) Advances in Clinical Child Psychology. Advances in Clinical Child Psychology, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9817-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9817-2_2
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