The Disinhibition Theory

The disinhibition theory contends that throughout our lives, we have acquired a set of moral and personal ethics.  Furthermore, some of these moralistic ideas are ones that ethically prohibit us from engaging in certain behaviors.  These are called inhibitions.

Over time, if we come into contact with a number of mass-mediated messages that seem to condone this behavior, we may lose out inhibitions.

Once we lose our inhibitions, we become more likely to engage in these behaviors.

A great example of this researched  theory was conducted by J.D. Brown, J.R. Steele, and K. Walsh-Childers.  The group contended,

         “That exposure to an event from the media triggers other related ideas for a short time after.”

Ideas being formed shortly after exposure to forms of mass media indicate the strength of the message and how it is internalized. With repeated exposure and increased tolerance, these ideas usually materialize into some form of activity. These thoughts,

        

         “can activate other semantically related concepts and make them more accessible.”

In correlation to violence, the disinhibition theory contends that television viewing may lower inhibitions about behaving aggressively as well as supply signals that indicate whether a specific behavior is appropriate.

EXAMPLE:

Richard Walters and Edward Thomas, using three different samples of subjects, found that those subjects who saw a knife-fight scene (compared to those who saw a more constructive film) gave stronger shocks to other participants who made a mistakes in a learning task after they saw the film than before they saw the film. 

Knife-fight scene from "West Side Story"

In another experiment, children who saw a violent and aggressive movie were less likely than children in a control condition to try to stop what sounded like a serious fight in another room.