Seven-year-old Mark likes to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles every day after school. When the program is finished, he meets his friends in his backyard and they playfully dropkick each other over and over. This eventually leads to real fighting between the children. This is an example of the _____ effect.
This behaviour is most likely an example of the violence-viewing effect. The violence-viewing effect occurs when a person views a situation in which violence has no consequences. This most likely occurs in a TV show or some other fictional depiction. In these situations, the pain of the victim is not shown and violence is made to look attractive and accepted. This can lead people to become desensitized to it or to be more likely to reproduce the behaviour.
