Browsing by Subject "nuoriso"

Objectives: Youth violence is a phenomenon that can have long-lasting and serious consequences for its victims as well as the perpetrators themselves. It is important to try and recognize factors that can have an effect on violent behaviour. The purpose of this study was to find out if there are links between exposure to media violence, the Big Five -personality traits and youth violence. In addition to studying these factors separately, it was also studied if some of the personality traits increase vulnerability to the negative effects of media violence exposure. Based on earlier research it was hypothesized that exposure to violent games and violent movies is associated with violent behaviour. With regards to personality it was hypothesized, based on earlier research, that low agreeableness, low conscientiousness and high neuroticism are associated with violent behaviour. In addition it was hypothesized that these same personality traits increase vulnerability to the negative effects of media violence exposure. Methods: This study employs data from survey on youth crime collected by the Institute of criminology and legal policy. The data was collected in 2012. 8941 Finnish sixth- and ninth-graders took the survey. Participants with answers that were assessed unreliable were excluded from the data. The final sample size used in this study was 8791. The main analyses of the study were performed with logistic regression. Results and conclusions: Consistent with the hypotheses, media violence exposure was associated with violent behaviour. With regards to personality, it was found that low agreeableness and low conscientiousness each were associated with all forms of violent behaviour studied. High extraversion was associated with bullying, participating in a fight and committing an assault. Low neuroticism was associated with committing an assault, and low openness to experience was associated with robbery with threatening behaviour. Conscientiousness and extraversion had statistically significant interactions with media violence exposure with regards to violent behaviour. Extraverted people seem to be more vulnerable to the negative effects of media violence exposure. Conscientiousness doesn't seem to be associated with violent behaviour when the exposure to media violence is high. Parents and schools should be made aware of the negative effects of media violence exposure, so they can monitor and limit the media use of the youth. In the future it would also be important to gain more information about the factors that increase vulnerability to media violence exposure.