TY - JOUR PY - 1994// TI - Effects of television content on physical risk-taking in children JO - Journal of experimental child psychology A1 - Potts, R. A1 - Doppler, M. A1 - Hernandez, Melba SP - 321 EP - 331 VL - 58 IS - 3 N2 - This study is an investigation of effects of risk-taking by characters in television programs on children's self-reported willingness to take physical risks. Twenty-four boys and 26 girls, ages 6 to 9 years, were assigned to view TV stimulus programs with infrequent physical risk-taking. TV stimulus programs with frequent risk-taking, or no TV stimuli. A self-report measure was used to assess children's willingness to take physical risks in several common injury-relevant situations. Five of the items were administered as a pretest before children watched the stimulus programs and five items were used as a post-test after they viewed the programs. A validation assessment on an independent sample of children indicated that the risk-taking measure was positively correlated with other measures of risk-taking as well as physical injuries. Results indicated that children who viewed the high-risk TV programs increased their self-reported risk-taking significantly more than children in the low-risk TV and no-TV control conditions. Findings are discussed within a theoretical context of observational learning processes, with implications for childhood injury.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0022-0965 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1994.1037 ID - ref1 ER -