I definitely have a dark side. For as long as I can remember I have loved scary and/or weird stuff, starting with Nancy Drew and John Bellairs (remember The House With a Clock in its Walls? Spooky!), moving on to Nightmare on Elm Street and anything by Stephen King, James Lee Burke or Jonathan Kellerman, and now Lee Child. I watch police procedurals or The Hunger Games with equal zeal. Much to the irritation of my family, who’d all rather watch baseball or Fixer-Upper on HGTV.
But I’m very much a pacifist by nature, which seems to be a contradiction, right? I don’t play violent video games, don’t believe in guns, don’t kill spiders. Yet I salivate over the thought of an evening binge-watching Criminal Minds, and oh, yeah…
I write murder mysteries.
Frou-frou, blood-lite cozy buddy stories, true, but at least one person gets whacked in every single one! What’s up with that? How can I justify my treehuggery sweetheart tendencies with this obvious hidden bloodlust?
The answer is this: I cannot.
I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I love experiencing violence vicariously, through fiction. Mine or someone else’s, it makes no matter–there’s something in me that’s just as satisfied with an imaginary adrenaline rush as a real one, maybe more satisfied, and my way doesn’t require major surgery or years of therapy afterward. At least not so far.
But on that note, how do I feel about what I do in the wake of the violence we seem to be experiencing in our country right now? Between gun violence, racial violence, and terrorism, it could be hard to reconcile this pain and suffering with my not-so-secret bloodlust. And now I am a proud author in an entirely new WEEK, Mystery Thriller Week, which is geared toward feeding all of our secret urges. Do the two relate?
My instinct is, of course, to say no, because I’m referring to my own outlook and the outlook of others around me. I do, however, like to feel like I’m smart enough not to rely solely on instinct, so I did a little research. Here are two of the articles I felt were best—due to sheer number of studies cited and the legitimacy of the organization doing the research (I feel the American Psychological Association is very legit when we’re discussing what? Oh, yeah—elements of our psychology!): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/does-media-violence-lead-to-the-real-thing.html
http://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/protect.aspx
Those articles are more likely to focus on video games or violent movies and TV shows, but then I found two articles specifically about literature and violence:
http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4740&context=etd
https://psmag.com/reading-fiction-impacts-aggressive-behavior-6142063dc241#.3gxcldv5w
Both of these articles come from Coyne, not the APA, but it seems this study might be the only one out there looking specifically at the written word. After I read all of these articles, what emerged as the main result? Here’re a couple of findings:
A 1969 15 year study published some findings re: television viewing. The National Institutes of Public Health published these findings in 1982 :
- Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.
- Children may be more fearful of the world around them.
- Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.
On to violence in video games (because this research covers both,) here are a couple of findings:
A 2010 review by psychologist Craig A. Anderson and others concluded that “the evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior.” Anderson’s earlier research showed that playing violent video games can increase a person’s aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in daily life. “One major conclusion from this and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters,” says Anderson.
But then there’s this:
Other researchers, including psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson, have challenged the position that video game violence harms children. While his own 2009 meta–analytic review reported results similar to Anderson’s, Ferguson contends that laboratory results have not translated into real world, meaningful effects. He also claims that much of the research into video game violence has failed to control for other variables such as mental health and family life, which may have impacted the results. His work has found that children who are already at risk may be more likely to choose to play violent video games. According to Ferguson, these other risk factors, as opposed to the games, cause aggressive and violent behavior. (all of these numbers are from http://www.apa.org/action/resources/research-in-action/protect.aspx)
As for the Coyne findings, the basic theme is this:
In both cases, provoked people who were given the opportunity to engage in a specific form of retaliatory violence were more likely to do so if they had just read a fictional account of similar activity. (from https://psmag.com/reading-fiction-impacts-aggressive-behavior-6142063dc241#.8xbdbjgo9).
So, all the studies I found basically did point to possible correlations between exposure to violent media and violent behavior and/or desensitization to violence. Does that go against my instincts on the subject? I guess it does. I must redirect your attention, though, to the ‘other risk factors’ listed. I feel that people who are exposed to violent media without a good method of taking in the information, i.e. an education and a support system, are shortchanged and thus more likely to react in an inappropriate way to violent media. I feel these people might miss out on the ‘entertainment’ purpose of media.
My children have a dark side, too—I’m pretty sure. Maybe not as bloodthirsty as mine, but it’s there. I see it in their interests, books, movies and songs. But I also see their good hearts and treehuggery tendencies—right in line with mine.
So I’m not going to stop writing murder mysteries, or reading them, or hoping a lot of other people want to as well. J Instead, I’m investing my efforts in creating a world where all forms of fictional entertainment mesh seamlessly with factual kindness, goodness, and a lovely anticipation of MYSTERY THRILLER WEEK! Yaaay, BOOKS!
I’d love to hear your views! Until next time: Stay Mystified!
Kelley Kaye
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