Years ago, in the
wake of the infamous Columbine High School shooting, a reporter
asked me if the video game Doom was to blame. Investigators
had just learned that the teenage killers had been fans
of the game, in which a player engages in a graphic killing
rampage. So, the reporter wondered, didn't I think that
the massacre was simply a matter of monkey see monkey
do?
My answer: "Of course not." Just think of all
the people who have played a violent video game or watched
a violent movie. If media violence caused people to imitate
what they have seen, the entire human race would have wiped
itself out years ago. Media images affect our values and
our norms, which can, in turn, shape our behavior. But,
I told the reporter, the impact of the media is much more
complex than simple cause and effect.
A few months ago, I wrote about a study showing a causal
link between media violence and real-world aggression. And
now new discoveries in neuroscience show monkey see monkey
do might not be so far off either.
It all began over a decade ago with the discovery of mirror
cells. One day, an Italian neuroscience graduate student
returned to his team's lab eating an ice cream cone. A monkey
that was hooked up to machines measuring his brain activity
noticed the ice cream. The scientists, led by a man named
by Giacomo Rizzolatti, noticed that every time the student
licked the cone the monkey's brain signaled activity even
though he was motionless. The monkey wasn't physically doing
anything, but his mirror cells were practicing the action
he saw. He was learning how to lick an ice cream cone.
It turns out humans have mirror cells too, more than any
other species, in fact. The latest research shows that mirror
cells are more than just the basis for imitation - they
are the foundation for social interaction and moral awareness.
Here's how Dr. Rizzolatti explained the phenomenon in the
New York Times: "Mirror neurons allow us to
grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning
but through direct simulation. By feeling not by thinking."
When we observe other people, mirror cells fire in response
to the actions we observe. And it's not just a matter of
recording an observation; mirror cells simulate these actions
in our brain. The brain's capacity for empathy is based
in mirror cells as well. When we observe another person
experiencing an emotion, the mirror cells in the same emotional
circuits light up in our own brains. That's why we get scared
at movies or angry when playing a violent video game. As
far as mirror cells are concerned, it's as if these things
are happening to us.
Luckily, our brains our made from more than mirror cells.
Most of us can tell the difference between the people on
the screen that person watching them. But even if we're
not imitating what we see, we're always learning how to
do what we see. All the more reason to Watch What Your
Kids Watch. If you don't, the media could make a monkey
out of them.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder
of the MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediafamily.org).
His latest book is Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival
Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen
is a national bestseller.
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