ABSTRACT
This study examined the contribution of verbally aggressive and physically aggressive TV exposure to self-reported verbal and physical aggression. Verbally aggressive TV exposure was calculated by respondents’ frequency of viewing 60 TV shows found to be popular among college students and coded for their aggressive content. A total of 637 emerging adults were surveyed for the main study. A path analyses using SPSS Amos with verbal and physical aggression as the primary endogenous variables was used to analyze the data. Exposure to physically aggressive TV programming was found to have a direct effect on self-reported verbal and physical aggression while exposure to verbally aggressive programming had an indirect effect via exposure to physically aggressive programming, thus partially supporting a “cross-over effect.” Additionally, verbal aggression was found to be a positive predictor of physical aggression, both in real life and on the screen.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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Jack Glascock
Jack Glascock (Ph.D., Michigan State University) is an associateprofessor in the School of Communication at Illinois StateUniversity. His research interests focus on media content andmedia effects.