Today's NYT reports on a paper presented at AEA that shows that violent films actually reduce, not increase, violent crime. The paper is Dahl and DellaVigna, Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?. Here's the abstract:
What is the short-run impact of media violence on crime? Laboratory experiments in psychology find that exposure to media violence increases aggression. In this paper, we provide field evidence on this question. We exploit variation in the violence of blockbuster movies between 1995 and 2004, and study the effect on same-day assaults. We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is partly due to incapacitation: between 6PM and 12AM, an increase of one million in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 0.5 to 0.9 percent. However, after exposure to the movie, between 12AM and 6AM, crime is reduced by an even larger percentage (albeit from a lower base). This decrease does not appear to be due to a cathartic effect specific to violent movies, since non-violent movies that appeal to young males have the same effect. The finding is most likely due to extended incapacitation and a decrease in alcohol consumption. Overall, we find no evidence of a temporary surge in violent crime due to exposure to movie violence. Rather, our estimates suggest that in the short-run violent movies deter 175 assaults daily. The differences compared with the experimental results may be due to experimental procedures, or to sorting into violent movies in the field. Our design does not allow us to estimate long-run effects.
So the effect seems to be one of incapacitation and sobriety -- the films keep would-be perps sober and off the streets -- rather than a psychological fix (catharsis). Thus, as the NYT article says:
Professor Dahl suggested Hollywood could help cut crime in more palatable fashion by cutting out the gore while making movies that still attract male teenagers and 20-somethings.“We need more Adam Sandler movies,” he said. “Even though I’m not a big fan of Adam Sandler, that’s the implication.”
Note that the study does not examine long-run effects. Thus, it seems possible that the violence may simply have been time-shifted rather than reduced. Maybe Adam Sandler would produce a more permanent effect, perhaps by deadening young brains rather than merely putting them on ice for a few hours.
For other short-term solutions to youth violence, there are some suggestions here.
By the way, Frank Pasquale says about this study: "I'd trust individualized psychological research far more than I would follow brute aggregation here" and faults the study for not indicating long-term effects. This is a non-sequitur. The study's inconclusiveness on long-term effects does not support Pasquale's preference for a particular type of research. A longer term study might well support, or refute, the catharsis thesis.
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