Adults are not immune to modeling behavior from fictional aggressors

Evidence

It is widely assumed that displays of violence may affect children because they are less able to foresee the full consequences of their actions but that adults, who possess a greater reality sense, are relatively immune to such influences. However, the television industry exonerates media influences by minimizing adverse effects, even for children, on the grounds that they know the difference between fantasy and reality: “Children know about violence from their own experience and are able to distinguish television dramatized violence as make-believe” (Baldwin & Lewis, 1972). Because the portrayals are make-believe, viewers supposedly do not model their behavior after fictional characters who are aggressing in atypical situations. Quite the contrary. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 887

Categorization

• XREF: This industry ‘they know it’s make-believe so it doesn’t matter’ rationalization parallels the psychological mechanism vault claims about ordinary people rationalizing harmful policy. — connects to: Fictional aggression weakens adult restraints as effectively as real violence
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 887