Media influences on prosocial behaviour

Media influences on prosocial behaviour

1. Explanations for media influences on prosocial behaviour

   • Equivalent number pro and anti social
   • Younger children less able to understand
   • Effective parental mediation
   • prosocial behaviour more likely to be enforced

2. Research Studies of Prosocial Behaviour

   • Mares 1996 - children exposed to prosocial content
     • Behave more altruistically
     • Higher levels of social control in own behaviour
     • also get prosocial effects from other media - books(Mares and Woodard 2001)
     • more positive towards one another
     • less stereotyped in attitudes and beliefs.

3. Evaluation

   • TV preschool kids fewer prosocial lessons
   • prosocial depictions more impact when concrete than abstract
   • Post viewing discussion may enhance but not always
   • Strongest effect preschool least on adolescent.
   • Instructive mediation effective - social co-viewing not
   • mix pro and anti messages reduce the effectiveness of the pro
   • Zimmerman 2007 -Baby Einstein dvd could lead to poorer outcome
   • Real world application - Sesame Street more effective