By David Gale
Watching Wile E. Coyote''s antics and Dirty Harry''s crime fighting as a child may encourage violence later in life, a recent study reports.
The study, published this month by the American Psychological Association, seemed to confirm the belief that viewing of violent television programs by children on a regular basis can increase the likelihood of committing violence later in life.
Carried out by psychologists from the University of Michigan''s Institute for Social Research, the study is a follow-up of a 1977 analysis. More than 500 children, ages six to 10, were asked to identify television they watched on a regular basis.
The new study, the results of a follow-up survey conducted in 1992 and 1995, involved more than 300 adults that were taken from the 1977 study.
The participants took another test to identify programming they watched on a regular basis and how often they participated in aggressive behavior.
Researchers also used data from state archives on criminal conviction records and moving traffic violations of the participants.
The study concluded that men who watched violent programs such as Starsky and Hutch, The Six Million Dollar Man and Roadrunner cartoons on a regular basis were three times as likely to be convicted of criminal behavior or moving violations.
Women were even more affected by violent programming.
They were more than four times as likely of engaging in violent or aggressive behaviors such as hitting other adults, giving people the finger, throwing things and committing moving violations.
Programs with the greatest effect on aggressiveness by viewers were those where violence was rewarded, according to the study.
'A violent act by someone like Dirty Harry that results in a criminal being eliminated and brings glory to Harry is of more concern than a bloodier murder by a despicable criminal who is brought to justice,' said L. Rowell Huesmann, lead author of the study and a psychologist at Michigan''s Aggression Research Group.
Huesmann said ages six to eight are critical learning years when children learn patterns of social behavior.
The study said television had an effect on violent behavior even after other factors such as socio-economic status, how much education parents had and children''s initial aggressiveness were considered.
The latest study showed results similar to a study released last year by Columbia University that tracked 700 children for 17 years.
In the Columbia study, researchers said the average child had seen 100,000 acts of violence and 8,000 murders on television by the end of elementary school.
The National Television Violence tracked the content of television shows from 1994 to 1997.
Despite possible negative effects, more than 60 percent of the television programs on the air during those four years contained some form of violence, according to the study.
More than 80 researchers at four universities from across the nation participated in the study.
The study also found that more than 1,600 of 2,700 programs studied contained at least some form of violence.
More than 60 percent of the shows contained 'multiple acts of aggression.'
In addition, the National Television Violence study found that 68 percent of all children''s television programming portrayed violence as harmless and humorous.