Page 143 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

132 BANDURA

These motivational effects are governed by observers’ judgments of their
ability to accomplish the modeled behavior, their perceptions of the mod-
eled actions as producing favorable or adverse consequences, and their
inferences that similar or unlike consequences would result if they, them-
selves, were to engage in similar activities.
Vicarious incentives take on added significance by their power to alter
the valence and force of external incentives (Bandura, 1986). The value of
a given outcome is largely determined by its relation to other outcomes
rather than inherent in their intrinsic qualities. The same outcome can
function as a reward or punishment depending on social comparison
between observed and personally experienced outcomes. For example,
the same pay raise has negative valence for persons who have seen simi-
lar performances by others compensated more generously, but positive
valence when others have been compensated less generously. Equitable
rewards foster a sense of well-being; inequitable ones breed discontent
and resentment.
Vicariously created motivators have been studied most extensively in
terms of the inhibitory and disinhibitory effects of modeled transgressive,
aggressive, and sexual behavior with accompanying outcomes (Bandura,
1973; Berkowitz, 1984; Malamuth & Donnerstein, 1984; Paik & Comstock,
1994; Zillmann & Bryant, 1984).
Transgressive behavior is regulated by two major sources of sanctions—
social sanctions and internalized self-sanctions. Both control mechanisms
operate anticipatorily. In motivators arising from social sanctions, people
refrain from transgressing because they anticipate that such conduct will
bring them social censure and other adverse consequences. In motivators
rooted in self-reactive control, people refrain from transgressing because
such conduct will give rise to self-reproach. Media portrayals can alter
perceived social sanctions by the way in which the consequences of dif-
ferent styles of conduct are portrayed. For example, televised aggression
is often exemplified in ways that tend to weaken restraints over aggres-
sive conduct (Goranson, 1970; Halloran & Croll, 1972; Larsen, 1968). In
televised representations of human discord, physical aggression is a pre-
ferred solution to interpersonal conflicts; it is acceptable and relatively
successful; and it is socially sanctioned by superheroes triumphing over
evil by violent means. Such portrayals legitimize, glamorize, and trivial-
ize human violence.
Inhibitory and disinhibitory effects stemming from self-sanctions are
mediated largely through self-regulatory mechanisms. After standards
have been internalized, they serve as guides and deterrents to conduct by
the self-approving and self-reprimanding consequences people produce
for themselves. However, moral standards do not function as fixed inter-
nal regulators of conduct. Self-regulatory mechanisms do not operate