View a violent cartoon and then answer these questions: (a) What potential effects would such cartoons have on children's aggression and tolerance for violence? (b) What potential effects would such cartoons have on children's acquisition of prosocial behavior?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

(a) Effects of cartoons would depend in part on the child's ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, which in turn is partly a function of the child's age and level of cognitive development. A careful look at the messages in a cartoon should arouse some concern about possible negative effects. Most of the action might involve blatant damage to a coyote, for example, as a result of his trying to inflict damage on a roadrunner, and therefore both the child's taste and tolerance for violence might increase as a result of watching this kind of cartoon regularly. Damage to the characters is always temporary, which might blur the child's distinction between fantasy and reality where violence is concerned. The impression given by such cartoons is that the character is always okay afterward, no matter how badly the character gets hurt. (b) In the coyote vs. roadrunner example, at least the coyote's schemes always backfire, which might convey the prosocial behavior that "bad guys" get punished because the bad guy's schemes never work. Also, the roadrunner handles difficulties by passive resistance and by outwitting the coyote rather than by counterattack or hostile aggression. Therefore, the roadrunner does not serve as a further model for aggressive responses.