Desensitizing Children's Emotional Reactions to the Mass Media

This experiment assesses the effectiveness of two desensitization strategies for reducing emotional reactions to mass media. Children from two grade levels (kindergarten and first vs. second through fourth grade) were assigned to one of three conditions before watching a frightening movie scene involving lizards: passive exposure to a live lizard, modeled exposure during which the experimenter touched the live lizard, or no exposure. Results revealed that modeled exposure decreased emotional reactions and negative interpretations of lizards for both age groups, whereas passive exposure had a more limited effect on emotional reactions and did not influence interpretations. The findings are consistent with current theories of desensitization and observational learning.