Does watching television lead to violence?

A natural experiment was conducted by Joy, Kimball and Zabrack in 1986 to measure the influence of
television on children’s aggressive behaviour. The study was conducted across three different small towns
in British Columbia, one with no television, the second one (Notel) with only one running channel and the
third town with four channels. The change in both physical and verbal aggression in 120 elementary
school students from each town was observed by the researchers.

The aggressive behaviour of children living in Notel increased from 1973 to 1975, with males being
predominantly more hostile than females. However, the impulsiveness of children in the other two towns
did not change. The research suggests that children in Notel became more aggressive due to their lack of
familiarity to television, supporting Bandura’s ​Social Cognitive Behaviour ​theory as children were
influenced with what they saw on television, proving that learning can be done through observation.