STUDY LINKS CHILDHOOD TV VIOLENCE TO SPOUSAL ABUSE LATER IN LIFE

ANN ARBOR, March 10, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new University of Michigan study adds evidence to the theory that TV violence viewed as children leads to aggressive adult behavior when the children grow up, including spousal abuse and other crimes—no matter how they behaved during childhood. What is new in the study is that girls are affected as much as boys.  Participants were interviewed at ages 6 to 9 in the late 1970s and again in their early 20s.  The 329 adults were recently contacted in order to gauge the long-term effects. The findings are presented in the March issue of the journal Developmental Psychology by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann and colleagues at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.  As young adults, men in the study who had scored in the top 20% on exposure to TV violence in childhood were twice as likely as other men to have pushed, grabbed or shoved their wives during an argument in the year preceding the interview, USA Today reports. Women who had scored in the top 20% were about twice as likely as other women to have thrown something at their husbands.  For media coverage:  https://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-03-09-tv-violence_x.htm