16.2.17

Cognitive Priming

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Media and Cognitive Priming

Media can have implications on the scripts we call on in certain situations. Repeatedly consuming violent media can lead to aggressive cognitive priming.

Scripts

Scripts

  • Cognitive priming refers to the way in which violent images provide us with ready-made scripts about aggression which are stored in memory and triggered when we perceive aggressive cues in a situation.
  • Repeated viewing of aggressive media, especially game playing, can provide us with a script about how violence situations take place.
Priming

Priming

  • Huesmann (1988) suggests that these scripts are stored in memory and so we become ready, or primed, to be aggressive.
  • The process of priming is mostly automatic.
  • It can direct our behaviour without us being aware of it, and the script is triggered when we encounter cues in the situation that we perceive as aggressive.
__Fischer and Greitemeyer (2006)__

Fischer and Greitemeyer (2006)

  • Fischer and Greitemeyer (2006) looked at priming of aggressive scripts in memory by investigating song lyrics.
    • Male participants listened to songs featuring aggressively derogatory lyrics about women.
    • They were compared with when they listened to neutral lyrics.
  • Participants subsequently recalled more negative qualities about women and behaved more aggressively towards a female confederate.
Women

Women

  • This procedure was replicated with female participants, using men-hating song lyrics, with similar results.

Cognitive Priming Study

There are potentially life-saving benefits in understanding how cognitive priming influences aggression in the real life situations.

Cues

Cues

  • Whether aggressive situations break out into violence often depends on how the participants interpret environmental cues.
  • This in turn depends on the cognitive scripts they have stored in memory.
__Bushman and Anderson (2002)__

Bushman and Anderson (2002)

  • Bushman and Anderson (2002) suggest that someone who habitually watches violent media, accesses stored aggressive scripts more readily.
  • This means they are more likely to:
    • Interpret cues as aggressive,
    • Resort to a violent solution,
    • Fail to consider the alternatives.
Conclusions

Conclusions

  • This explanation provides a possible means by which violent media could trigger aggressive behaviour through the priming of cognitive scripts.
Uses

Uses

  • Effective interventions could potentially reduce aggressive behaviour by challenging hostile cognitive biases and encouraging habitual violence media users to consider alternatives to aggression, such as humour and negotiation.
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