The Reification of Normalcy

Abstract

Many researchers who investigate the putative effects of violent television on normal children claim there is a lifetime sociopathic effect on many of the children who watch. There may be. But there is a prevailing assumption that because television can produce sociopathic effects in a laboratory, that it does outside the laboratory. In addition, uncritical assumptions of psychological normalcy among most viewers are so prevalent among researchers in this field that any pathological lifetime effect may be exaggerated. The incidence of psychopathology, especially among nonrandom subject samples obtained from public schools, may be higher than investigators suspect, which could lead to overestimates of pernicious effects by television on children. Because pathological children are more vulnerable to commercial television's putative sociopathic effects than are normal children, they may bias study results toward sociopathic attitudes and behaviors, thus misleading researchers into believing that television has a greater sociopathic effect on normal populations than it actually has. Those psychopathologies are reviewed and prospective remedies are suggested for helping those children cope with the possible sociopathic effects of violently oriented television.