will tend to bemore aggressive than children who live in an aggressive environment. Another example of modeling aggressive behavior in television is the study asreported in The Impact of Television (1986) where Tannis Williams and her associates atthe University of British Columbia studied a rural community which was recentlyintroduced to television compared to two rural communities that already had televisionand high levels of aggression. The observation was conducted after the first communityhad television for two years. The subjects were forty-five first and second grade students.After the two year period, William and her associates had concluded that the aggressionamong children in the first community increased by 160 percent whereas in the othercommunities the aggression levels remained the same. One can infer from this study thattelevision has an impact on children reenacting the violent behaviors. Moreover, Brandan S. Centerwall in Television and Violent Crime studies thecrime rates in the United States, Canada and South Africa between the years 1945 to1974 when South Africa did not have television whereas both the United States andCanada had television. His results concluded that the "homicide rate in the United Statesincreased by 93 percent [and] in Canada the homicide rate increased 92 percent. In SouthAfrica the homicide rate declined by 7 percent." In fact, in 1982 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMB) did a study toconclude if violence on television increases hostile behaviors in people. They alsodetermined that people will imitate the violent acts seen in the media. In addition, theNIMB reported "that television violence causes aggression, and that a distorted worldpresented on television causes heavy viewers to see the real world as more hostile andscary than it really is." What gender is more likely to imitate aggressive behavior? It is generally agreedthat boys are more naturally aggressive than girls. In fact,...
