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Television "Violence" and Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Kenneth D. Gadow received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He is currently research associate professor of child psychiatry and professor of special education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His current research interests include television and child behavior, pediatric psychopharmacotherapy, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, and Tourette syndrome.

Joyce Sprafkin

Joyce Sprafkin received her PhD in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is currently associate professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her research interests include television and child behavior, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, and Tourette syndrome. Address: Kenneth D. Gadow, Department of Psychiatry, Putnam Hall-South Campus, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794–8790.

The role of television viewing in the etiology and exacerbation of aggressive behavior has been a topic of controversy for many years, and popular sentiment supports a causal link between viewing "violent" content and behaving aggressively. To better understand television's effect on children who meet public school criteria for emotional disturbance (ED), the authors conducted a 10-year program of research into their television viewing habits, comprehension of and reactivity to aggressive- and nonaggressive-content material, and responsiveness to a viewing skills curriculum. Research findings showed that children with ED viewed relatively large amounts of violent material, preferred aggressive characters, and were more likely to believe fictional content to be true. However, they were no more likely to behave aggressively in naturalistic social situations following the viewing of aggression-laden material than nonaggressive content. A curriculum designed to enhance viewing skills did increase knowledge but did not appear to have a measurable effect on overt behavior.

Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Vol. 1, No. 1, 54-63 (1993)
DOI: 10.1177/106342669300100108


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