much like the callings of another well-known historical figure from the 1940’s, the leader of the Third Reich, Adolph Hitler.(Handler) Nurturing also presents a strong argument for the development of violence and or aggression. Going back to the situation with Kody Scott, how could he have killed his rival gang member had he not been there, the environment and the years of spending in a violent gang helped him make the choice to cold-bloodedly execute the young man.(3) One of the most heated debates going on today is the conditioning value of movies and the rest of the media. Do movies really affect us in aggressive ways? The United States Navy seems to think so, for one of their psychiatrists developed a "formula" to psychologically enable certain soldiers to become assassins and this process consists of using violent movies. They do perform this process in order to desensitize the government paid assassin to murders, executions, and unfeeling deaths. There appear to be three major types of conditioning occurring with the media concerning violence. First, there is a classical conditioning when people sit at home and see detailed, horrible suffering of people and they are associating this killing and suffering with their enjoyment, with a big container of pop-corn, with their favorite soft-drink, and with their friends and company, all things that the person sees as positive. B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning comes into play through interactive video games where there is a reward for killing or destroying numerous things with no concern for their well-being. Lastly, social learning as described by Bandura seems to take in mind the numerous role models who people see nowadays in the movies.(8) For example, in the movie Pulp Fiction, the hero Butch (Bruce Willis) ends up killing two people and he is glorified at the end of the movie. He makes up with the person who was chasing him, makes a large amount of money, survives the...
