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Parents susceptible to violence, sex desensitization in movies
Recent data demonstrate parents became desensitized to violence and sexual content in movies, which may explain increasing acceptance of this type of content among film raters and parents.
Daniel Romer, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues asked 1,000 parents how they felt about children and adolescent viewing films with sexual and violent content rated either PG-13 or R. Study participants were parents to children aged 6 to 9 years (n=301), 10 to 12 years (n=301) or 13 to 17 years (n=398). Parents viewed 3 pairs of movie scenes in random order. Movie scenes included violent clips from 6 movies and sexual clips from 2 movies. Violent scenes involved one character harming another character, usually with a firearm. Two of the violent clips involved victims of violence that were robots in human form. All movies included in the study were inappropriate for children in the two younger age groups, according to Motion Picture Association of America standards.
Presentation order, parental monitoring and previous exposure to films influenced parents’ thoughts on age appropriateness regarding violent clips.
Parents reported the first violent clip they watched was appropriate for children aged 16.9 years (95% CI, 16.8-17). However, parents reduced their age rating by approximately 1 year for each succeeding clip.
Parents who had previously seen more of the clips were less restrictive overall and were more likely to have watched more movies in the last 7 days (r=0.28). Further, those who watched more movies were less restrictive as they viewed additional clips. Parents who viewed 11 or more movies rated the first violent clip appropriate for children aged 16.6 years (95% CI, 15.6-17.6) and the last clip appropriate for children aged 12 years (95% CI, 11.0-13.0).
Parents who watched less movies were less influenced by presentation order. Parents who reportedly watched no movies rated the final violent clip appropriate for children aged 14.8 years (95% CI, 14.2-15.4). Parents who viewed 3 to 4 movies rated the final clip appropriate for children aged 13.9 years (95% CI, 13.5-14.3).
Correlations between presentation order and parent age indicated older parents were less likely to be desensitized, according to researchers.
Parents’ age judgments for violent clips were not influenced by target child gender, parental education or income.
Presentation order also influenced parents’ judgments of age appropriateness for sexual content. The first sexual clip was rated appropriate for children aged 17.2 years (95% CI, 17.0-17.4) and the final sexual clip was rated appropriate for children aged 14 years (95% CI, 13.7-14.3). Previous exposure to films was inversely related to parents’ age judgments.
Additionally, target child’s age and gender influenced parents’ ratings of sexual content; they were more restrictive if the target child was older or female.
Older parents were less susceptible to desensitization to sexual content. However, desensitization to sex occurred when the two sex clips were viewed first and when they were viewed after violent content. Parents were desensitized to violence even if sexual clips preceded violent clips.
Parents who were initially more restrictive were less desensitized to sexual content as they watched more clips.
Overall, children’s age was more significant than parent’s age for both violent and sexual content age ratings, as parents were less restrictive for older children.
“These findings suggest that desensitization to films with violent or sexual content poses major challenges for the assignment of film ratings. Classification and Rating Administration raters who presumably see many films in a week may be subject to desensitization that affects their ratings,” the researchers wrote. “At the same time, parents may also be more accepting of lenient ratings as they are repeatedly exposed to films with violent or sexual content and may be more willing to allow their children to view it.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
