Media violence shapes aggression potential far more than it triggers immediate acts

Evidence

To sum up, the diverse psychosocial effects of exposure to televised violence have now been amply documented by converging evidence from diverse methodologies. Meta-analysis summarizes the size of influence of a given factor based on a large set of empirical studies. Anderson and Bushman (2001) report a cumulative meta-analysis that combines the studies included in four meta-analyses. The findings confirm that aggressive behavior is positively related to exposure to media violence. As previously documented, televised violence is a first-rate instructor in aggressive styles of conduct, a disinhibitor and motivator of preexisting forms of aggression, a desensitizer and habituator to human cruelty, and a shaper of public consciousness. … Given that individuals do not put into practice everything they have learned, the learning effect, which creates the potential for aggression, is considerably stronger than the performance effect (Bandura, 1965). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 790

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the learning-effect vs performance-effect distinction — media cultivation operates through learned potential, not immediate behavior.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 790