Violence on TV: What happens to children who watch?

A study led by Linda Pagani, Professor at the Université de Montreal’s School of Psychoeducation, reveals long-term associated risks of early exposure to violent content in childhood and teen antisocial behaviour, more than a decade later.

Past research has shown that watching violence had an immediate impact on aggressive behaviour in 4-year-old children but there are few studies investigating long-term risks. This new study wanted to see whether watching characters receiving rewards for violent actions as 4-year-olds would still be influencing the behaviour of the children in mid-adolescence.

Close to 2,000 children

The subjects for the study were typically developing middle-class children. As a population, they appear to have the lowest changes of engaging in aggression and behaviour harmful to others.

In all, the researchers looked at 963 girls and 982 boys born between the springs of 1997 and 1998 who were enrolled in the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. Parents reported the frequency of their child’s exposure to violent television content at ages 3.5 and 4.5 years old. Boys and girls then self-reported on several aspects of antisocial behaviour at age 15.

The study defines screen violence as anything “characterized by physical aggression, verbal aggression, and relational aggression […] depicting situations that intentionally attempt or cause harm to others.”

Children, the study says, “are attracted to fast-paced, stimulating, violent content, which often features appealing characters like superheroes who commit and are rewarded for aggressive acts, thus increasing the likelihood of exposure.”

The researchers then conducted analyses to examine whether exposure to violent television content at ages 3.5 and 4.5 years predicted later antisocial behaviour eleven years later.

Boys stand out

At age 15, for boys only, preschool violent televiewing predicted increases in antisocial behaviour. Being exposed to violent content in early childhood predicted later aggressive behaviours such as hitting or beating another person, with the intention of obtaining something, stealing, with or without any apparent reason.

Risks also included threats, insults, and gang fight involvement. The use of weapons is also among the behavioural outcomes predicted by exposure to childhood television violence in this study. No effects were found for girls, which was not surprising given that boys are generally more exposed to such content.

This study provides compelling evidence that early childhood exposure to media violence can have serious, long-lasting consequences, particularly for boys. This underscores the urgent need for parents and communities to be informed about the long-term risks and empower them to make informed choices about young children’s screen content exposure. It is parents and communities that can play a crucial role in limiting future problems by making sure children avoid exposure to violent media content.

Supplied by the University of Montreal

Image supplied by Freepik

More information: Linda S. Pagani et al, Prospective Associations Between Preschool Exposure to Violent Televiewing and Externalizing Behavior in Middle Adolescent Boys and Girls, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2025). DOI: 10.3390/ijerph22010129

Journal information: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.