Kanae Suzuki

Long-Term Relations Among Prosocial-Media Use, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior

Despite recent growth of research on the effects of prosocial media, processes underlying these effects are not well understood. Two studies explored theoretically relevant mediators and moderators of the effects of prosocial media on helping. Study 1 examined associations among prosocial- and violent-media use, empathy, and helping in samples from seven countries. Prosocial-media use was positively associated with helping. This effect was mediated by empathy and was similar across cultures. Study 2 explored longitudinal relations among prosocial-video-game use, violent-video-game use, empathy, and helping in a large sample of Singaporean children and adolescents measured three times across 2 years. Path analyses showed significant longitudinal effects of prosocial- and violent-video-game use on prosocial behavior through empathy. Latent-growth-curve modeling for the 2-year period revealed that change in video-game use significantly affected change in helping, and that this relationship was mediated by change in empathy.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Cyberbullying Behavior: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

The current study tested the relation between culture and cyberbullying using a short-term longitudinal research design. College-aged participants from the United States (n = 293) and Japan (n = 722) completed several questionnaires at Wave 1 that measured cyberbullying frequency, cyberbullying reinforcement, positive attitudes toward cyberbullying, and interdependent self-construal. Approximately 2 months later, participants completed the cyberbullying frequency questionnaire again. Results showed higher levels of cyberbullying change for the U.S. sample compared with the Japanese sample. Follow-up analyses showed that cyberbullying reinforcement and interdependent self-construal moderated this effect. Specifically, cyberbullying change was the highest (showing an increase over time) for the U.S. sample when reinforcement was highest and when interdependent self-construal was the lowest. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Media Violence and Other Aggression Risk Factors in Seven Nations

Cultural generality versus specificity of media violence effects on aggression was examined in seven countries (Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Japan, Romania, the United States). Participants reported aggressive behaviors, media use habits, and several other known risk and protective factors for aggression. Across nations, exposure to violent screen media was positively associated with aggression. This effect was partially mediated by aggressive cognitions and empathy. The media violence effect on aggression remained significant even after statistically controlling a number of relevant risk and protective factors (e.g., abusive parenting, peer delinquency), and was similar in magnitude to effects of other risk factors. In support of the cumulative risk model, joint effects of different risk factors on aggressive behavior in each culture were larger than effects of any individual risk factor.

Characteristics of Depiction of Pro-social Behaviour in Japanese Television Programmes: Longitudinal Studies of Fictional Programmes Broadcasted in 2003 and 2004

Abstract This study investigated the depiction of pro-social behaviour in Japanese fictional television programmes during one week of television programming in January 2003 and January 2004. Actors depicting pro-social behaviour in many cases were Japanese adults with no outstanding attractive features. Pro-social behaviours demonstrated were most often assistance activities in daily living triggered by goodwill or affection towards the targets of the pro-social behaviour. Rewards for demonstrating pro-social behaviour were not often depicted and there were an extremely small numbers of pro-social television programmes. In conclusion, there are very few factors to promote learning of pro-social behaviour on television.

An Analysis of Character Portrayals of Prosocial Acts on Japanese Fiction TV

This paper is to clarify the situation with the current media content analysis of Japanese television, has been designed to obtain information necessary for teaching media literacy. National Television Violence Study in the United States (1996-1998) based on create a chart documentation and coding, two at 2003 and 2004, extracts from fiction in the program each week, and analyzed the characteristics of the characters involved in what pro-social behavior. As a result, performer prosocial behavior is not portrayed as a very appealing character, promoting factors of observational learning was poor. In addition, the number of men than women in general depiction was also suggested divergence from reality. Finally, the villain character, there was little reward for good and evil characters complex.

A Two-Wave Panel Investigation of the Influence of Viewing Prosocial Behaviour on Television on the Sociality of Elementary School Children in Japan

To investigate the influence of television viewing on the attentive awareness and actual prosocial behaviour of elementary school children, a causal analysis of data from a two-wave panel survey administered to 487 children in the fourth grade and again in the fifth grade was conducted. Measures of viewers’ attentive awareness included contextual factors such as depictions of reward and punishment, perceived reasons for behaviour and the amount of contact with televised prosocial scenes. The influence of contextual factors relative to viewer empathy was also investigated. The results reveal that simply viewing large quantities of prosocial behaviour scenes does not encourage prosocial behaviour. However, prosocial depictions influence the behaviour of children with attentive awareness of rewards after behaviour and those who attribute reasons for behaviour in accordance with their own developmental levels, suggesting that such contextual information does not uniformly influence viewers, but is adjusted through empathy.