Page 147 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

136 BANDURA

Attribution of blame to one’s antagonists is still another expedient that
can serve self-exonerative purposes. Deleterious interactions usually
involve a series of reciprocally escalative actions, in which the antagonists
are rarely faultless. One can always select from the chain of events an
instance of the adversary’s defensive behavior and view it as the original
instigation. Injurious conduct thus becomes a justifiable defensive reac-
tion to belligerent provocations. Others can, therefore, be blamed for
bringing suffering on themselves. Self-exoneration is similarly achievable
by viewing one’s detrimental conduct as forced by circumstances rather
than as a personal decision. By blaming others or circumstances, not only
are one’s own actions excusable but one can also even feel self-righteous
in the process.
Because internalized controls can be selectively activated and disen-
gaged, marked changes in moral conduct can be achieved without chang-
ing people’s personality structures, moral principles, or self-evaluative
systems. It is self-exonerative processes rather than character flaws that
account for most inhumanities. The massive threats to human welfare
stem mainly from deliberate acts of principle rather than from unre-
strained acts of impulse.
The mechanisms of moral disengagement largely govern what is com-
monly labeled the “disinhibitory effect” of televised influences. Research
in which the different disengagement factors are systematically varied in
media portrayals of inhumanities attests to the disinhibitory power of
mass media influences (Berkowitz & Geen, 1967; Donnerstein, 1984;
Meyer, 1972). Viewers’ punitiveness is enhanced by exposure to media
productions that morally justify injurious conduct, blame and dehumanize
victims, displace or diffuse personal responsibility, and sanitize destruc-
tive consequences. Research assessing self-reactive control provides evi-
dence that sanctioning social conditions are linked to self-regulatory influ-
ences, which, in turn, are linked to injurious conduct (Bandura et al., 1975).
The same disengagement mechanisms are enlisted heavily by members of
the television industry in the production of programs that exploit human
brutality for commercial purposes (Baldwin & Lewis, 1972; Bandura,
1973).

Acquisition and Modification of Affective Dispositions

People are easily aroused by the emotional expressions of others. Vicari-
ous arousal operates mainly through an intervening self-arousal process
(Bandura, 1992). That is, seeing others react emotionally to instigating
conditions activates emotion-arousing thoughts and imagery in ob-
servers. As people develop their capacity for cognitive self-arousal, they
can generate emotional reactions to cues that are only suggestive of a