Age trends in the development of aggression, sex typing, and related television habits.

Conducted a 3-yr longitudinal study with 2 large samples of elementary school youngsters overlapping in 1 grade (N?=?672, 607, and 505 for each successive year). It was thus possible to trace developmental trends from Grades 1 to 5 on the following variables: aggression, frequency of TV viewing, extent of violence viewed on TV, judged realism of TV programs, and preference for masculine, feminine, or neutral activities. Data support the theory that there is a sensitive period during which the effect of TV can be especially influential on children's behavior. Further, since the correlation between violence viewing and aggression tends to increase until age 10–21 yrs, a cumulative effect beyond the sensitive period is suggested. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)