Media influences on prosocial behaviour

Explanations for media influences on prosocial behaviour
1. Equivalent number pro and anti social
2. Younger children less able to understand
3. Effective parental mediation
4. prosocial behaviour more likely to be enforced
Research Studies of Prosocial Behaviour
1. Mares 1996 - children exposed to prosocial content
  1. Behave more altruistically
  2. Higher levels of social control in own behaviour
  3. also get prosocial effects from other media - books(Mares and Woodard 2001)
  4. more positive towards one another
  5. less stereotyped in attitudes and beliefs.
Evaluation
1. TV preschool kids fewer prosocial lessons
2. prosocial depictions more impact when concrete than abstract
3. Post viewing discussion may enhance but not always
4. Strongest effect preschool least on adolescent.
5. Instructive mediation effective - social co-viewing not
6. mix pro and anti messages reduce the effectiveness of the pro
7. Zimmerman 2007 -Baby Einstein dvd could lead to poorer outcome
8. Real world application - Sesame Street more effective

Resource summary

	Created by annette Hendley over 10 years ago