An examination of individual susceptibility to the influence of aggressive film models

In a previous paper (Kniveton and Stephenson, 1970) we suggested that children with few interests of their own are likely to be more susceptible to the influence of filmed or television models than children with more extensive interests. However, neither we nor any other workers in this field have demonstrated that the tendency to imitate is a consistent behavioural characteristic. In fact, examination of the within-group scores for the subjects in the above-mentioned experiment reveals exceptionally large standard deviations for the amount of time spent imitating. These characterize both middle-class and working-class groups (Kniveton and Stephenson, 1972), although such groups differ consistently in their susceptibility to the filmed model used by the authors.