Viewing Movie Violence & Interest in Guns

The Ohio State University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Psychology, Social; Adolescent Behavior

Treatments: Behavioral: Movies with Guns

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03220412

2013B0542-3

Details and patient eligibility

About

More American children die by accidental gun use than children in other developed countries. One factor that can influence children's interest in guns is exposure to media containing guns. The objective of this study is to test whether children who see a movie containing guns will handle a real gun longer and will pull the trigger more times than children who see the same movie without guns.

Full description

A recent analysis of top selling films found that the depiction of guns in violent scenes in PG-13 films that target youth has increased from the level of G and PG files in 1985 when the rating was introduced, to the level of R films by 2005, to exceed the level of R films since 2012. By definition, a PG-13 movie is supposed to have less violence than an R-rated movie. The Motion Picture Association of America says on its website that the violence in a PG-13 movie "does not reach the restricted R category." Our study shows that it does. By including guns in violent scenes, film producers may be inadvertently increasing aggression in youth via a weapons effect. This experiment directly tests this hypothesis.

Enrollment: 104 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Age 8-12yrs, had not participated in study prior, was able to schedule participation with a known peer (8-12yo).

Exclusion criteria

Younger than 8yo, older than 12yo, had participated in study prior, could not schedule participation with a known peer (8-12yo)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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104 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental Condition

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention was guns in movies. Participants in this condition viewed a movie with guns, as it was filmed and distributed. The actual scenes in the movie (National Treasure or The Rocketeer) was not edited, but the same scenes were used as the Experimental Condition Intervention is m

Treatment:

Behavioral: Movies with Guns

Control Condition

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants in this condition viewed a movie without guns. The movie (National Treasure or The Rocketeer) was edited to remove guns from scenes.