Study shows soap operas trigger aggression in women

[klr]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/12 ... ggressive/

That steady diet of EastEnders IS turning her into a shrew

Study shows soap operas trigger aggression in women

By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

Posted in Entertainment, 12th March 2012 08:28 GMT

Just as the viewing of violent movies or videogames can turn people nasty, so it seems that hours spent watching angry fictional drama protagonists cheating, bullying, deceiving and shouting at one another will also have evil effects.

The revelation that EastEnders and Coronation Street cause at least as much human misery as Grand Theft Auto or Barbie and the Three Musketeers comes from research carried out by trick-cyclists at Iowa State uni. According to Iowa prof Douglas Gentile, "relational aggression" of the sort seen so commonly on soap operas and suchlike TV fare is just as bad for the viewer as actual violence.

Relational aggression covers such things as being mean to other people, lying about them and so forth.

"Relational aggression tends to be considered more socially acceptable – it's often portrayed on television," says Gentile. "Yet, several studies are starting to show that relational aggression can cause long-term harm."

According to an Iowa State statement accompanying publication of Gentile's research:

"Onscreen relational aggression – including social exclusion, gossip and emotional bullying – may prime the brain for aggression."

This might strike a chord with any Reg readers who may have found their significant others somewhat testy after a session watching their TV favourites cheating, deceiving and shouting abuse at one another.

Apparently Gentile and his colleagues pinned down their findings by means of showing several short films to 250 women. One film featured actual violence, another showed "relational aggression, where girls steal boyfriends, spread malicious gossip and kick someone out of their social circle".

The ladies were then tested for aggression levels, and sure enough the second film produced just as much aggro in them as the first.

"What this study shows is that relational aggression actually can cause a change in the way you think," says Prof Gentile. "And that matters because of course, how you think can change your behaviour."

Gentile and his fellow trick-cyclists have only confirmed the effect in women thus far. More research is needed, they say, to "determine whether their results are gender-specific".

The research is published, appropriately enough, in the journal Aggressive Behavior.

[FBM]

In related news, Aggressive Behavior editor in critical condition after being found in alley with numerous stiletto heel wounds over entire torso.

[Thinking Aloud]

Shock revelation - people growing up watching soap operas think that's how to behave in real life!

[klr]

The very thought of soap operas clogging up the TV schedules makes me angry as well

[Animavore]

Soap operas have a similar effect on me.

[Tyrannical]

I've noticed in general that women often have issues separating fantasy from reality, and feel perfectly justified using a scripted fictional TV show as a factual relationship example.
They also tend to blame you for their dream when you misbehave in it.

[Audley Strange]

I've noticed in general that women often have issues separating fantasy from reality, and feel perfectly justified using a scripted fictional TV show as a factual relationship example.
They also tend to blame you for their dream when you misbehave in it.

Considering the amount of women who are abused by their husbands increases dramatically every time a sports team gets beat somewhere and considering the gung-ho call of duty and other game comparisons made on youtube clips by those trained killers we fling at brown people, I don't think it just women who have such issues.

Still soap operas perform a very important function given the rush from the kitchen to the shop floor. By attempting to re-invent their entire gender they have had to sacrifice "community" (where they don't get to turn workplaces into knitting circles) which essentially means scandal and gossip. No longer knowing their real neighbourhood by going to communal laundrettes shopping in local stores etc, Soap operas become a virtual shared community, fulfilling the need for the endless canteen table or water cooler chin-wag.

They buy magazines dedicated to what's going on in the soaps which gives them almost prophetic powers. I recall once, and as long as I live I will never forget this,
a woman bursting into the smoking room in one of my old workplaces to announce "Michelle is going to be pregnant."

There was much cooing and excitement from the haggle (is that the collective term?) while I tried with great difficulty to figure out in what sense that announcement had any sensible meaning. Took me a while and some follow up questions to figure out they were talking about a soap. But such gossip serves the whole matriarchal hierarchical mystic knowledge horse-shit thing they've never shifted from.

[Tyrannical]

I've noticed in general that women often have issues separating fantasy from reality, and feel perfectly justified using a scripted fictional TV show as a factual relationship example.
They also tend to blame you for their dream when you misbehave in it.

Considering the amount of women who are abused by their husbands increases dramatically every time a sports team gets beat somewhere and considering the gung-ho call of duty and other game comparisons made on youtube clips by those trained killers we fling at brown people, I don't think it just women who have such issues.

Still soap operas perform a very important function given the rush from the kitchen to the shop floor. By attempting to re-invent their entire gender they have had to sacrifice "community" (where they don't get to turn workplaces into knitting circles) which essentially means scandal and gossip. No longer knowing their real neighbourhood by going to communal laundrettes shopping in local stores etc, Soap operas become a virtual shared community, fulfilling the need for the endless canteen table or water cooler chin-wag.

They buy magazines dedicated to what's going on in the soaps which gives them almost prophetic powers. I recall once, and as long as I live I will never forget this,
a woman bursting into the smoking room in one of my old workplaces to announce "Michelle is going to be pregnant."

There was much cooing and excitement from the haggle (is that the collective term?) while I tried with great difficulty to figure out in what sense that announcement had any sensible meaning. Took me a while and some follow up questions to figure out they were talking about a soap. But such gossip serves the whole matriarchal hierarchical mystic knowledge horse-shit thing they've never shifted from.

Hard to believe we are forced to consider women as equals when they are so clearly different from men.

[Audley Strange]

I've noticed in general that women often have issues separating fantasy from reality, and feel perfectly justified using a scripted fictional TV show as a factual relationship example.
They also tend to blame you for their dream when you misbehave in it.

Considering the amount of women who are abused by their husbands increases dramatically every time a sports team gets beat somewhere and considering the gung-ho call of duty and other game comparisons made on youtube clips by those trained killers we fling at brown people, I don't think it just women who have such issues.

Still soap operas perform a very important function given the rush from the kitchen to the shop floor. By attempting to re-invent their entire gender they have had to sacrifice "community" (where they don't get to turn workplaces into knitting circles) which essentially means scandal and gossip. No longer knowing their real neighbourhood by going to communal laundrettes shopping in local stores etc, Soap operas become a virtual shared community, fulfilling the need for the endless canteen table or water cooler chin-wag.

They buy magazines dedicated to what's going on in the soaps which gives them almost prophetic powers. I recall once, and as long as I live I will never forget this,
a woman bursting into the smoking room in one of my old workplaces to announce "Michelle is going to be pregnant."

There was much cooing and excitement from the haggle (is that the collective term?) while I tried with great difficulty to figure out in what sense that announcement had any sensible meaning. Took me a while and some follow up questions to figure out they were talking about a soap. But such gossip serves the whole matriarchal hierarchical mystic knowledge horse-shit thing they've never shifted from.

Hard to believe we are forced to consider women as equals when they are so clearly different from men.

I'm not forced nor do I consider anyone equal to anyone else apart from under the convenient and mostly fair consideration of legally equal and even at that we're not quite there yet. Others hang ups about such shit is their problem.

[maiforpeace]

My impression is that soap opera viewing is dropping...a few long running soaps here in the US were tossed off the air this past year.

Talk shows seem to be more de rigueur these days.

[Audley Strange]

My impression is that soap opera viewing is dropping...a few long running soaps here in the US were tossed off the air this past year.

Talk shows seem to be more de rigueur these days.

A very good point.

However there is a difference it seems between the U.S. Soaps and ours in the U.K. From what I've seen yours are all about hot steamy rich swinger types and ours are all about people who live on the border ghettos between a idealised miserablist version of 1950's Britain and Hell.

[klr]

My impression is that soap opera viewing is dropping...a few long running soaps here in the US were tossed off the air this past year.

Talk shows seem to be more de rigueur these days.

A very good point.

However there is a difference it seems between the U.S. Soaps and ours in the U.K. From what I've seen yours are all about hot steamy rich swinger types and ours are all about people who live on the border ghettos between a idealised miserablist version of 1950's Britain and Hell.

You mean there's a difference?

[Bella Fortuna]

My impression is that soap opera viewing is dropping...a few long running soaps here in the US were tossed off the air this past year.

Talk shows seem to be more de rigueur these days.

A very good point.

However there is a difference it seems between the U.S. Soaps and ours in the U.K. From what I've seen yours are all about hot steamy rich swinger types and ours are all about people who live on the border ghettos between a idealised miserablist version of 1950's Britain and Hell.

Funny to read this just now as I've just read a bit this morning in Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island where he says exactly the same thing!

[Twoflower]

I sometimes tune into Hollyoaks and spend the half hour laughing at the show and the crazy plots the writers come up with.

[Trinity]

I'm surprised that the study didn't show that soaps trigger suicidal thoughts and abject apathy and boredom.