Repeated exposure to violence breeds boredom and shifts preferences toward more extreme cruelty
Evidence
Repeated exposure to redundant brutality breeds boredom. As a consequence, institutional demands for gratuitous violence call for new forms of cruelty. In a memo to a script writer, an executive producer suggested the following revision: “I wish we could come up with a different device than running the man down with the car as we have done this now in three different shows. I like the idea of the sadism, but I hope we can come up with another approach for it” (Senate Hearings, 1962). Habituation through massive exposure also shifts preferences for more extreme forms of detrimental behavior (Zillmann & Bryant, 1984). “Last week you killed three men. What are you going to do this week?” (Senate Hearings, 1962). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 813
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Connects to the listener-taste escalation argument familiar from ‘The Soundscape’ chapter on lo-fi environments, where escalating noise also breeds tolerance shifts.