WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: Does Playing with Toy Guns Lead to Violent Behavior?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

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<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog obam here, but another classic

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<v Speaker 1>episode from our archive. This one deals with the sticky

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<v Speaker 1>psychological science of playtime. Kids use play to explore their

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<v Speaker 1>world and themselves. So is there danger in letting kids

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<v Speaker 1>play with toy versions of violent weapons like guns? Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren voge obam here. A question that's been

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<v Speaker 1>troubling parents more and more in an age when mass

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<v Speaker 1>shooting seem to occur with horrifying frequency, is should young

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<v Speaker 1>children be allowed to play with toy versions of the

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<v Speaker 1>weapons that are killing other kids and adults. In an

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<v Speaker 1>article for Vogue, writer Michelle Rui's described a conversation she

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<v Speaker 1>had with a fellow mother who asked, what are we

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<v Speaker 1>feeding our children in the metaphorical sense when we hand

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<v Speaker 1>them guns to play with? After a recent school shooting

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<v Speaker 1>in Indiana, a reader's letter to the Indianapolis Star voy

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<v Speaker 1>a similar sentiment. He wrote, children should not have even

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<v Speaker 1>cap pistols or toy guns to play with because it

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<v Speaker 1>teaches the wrong lesson. And here's a quote from a

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<v Speaker 1>Huffington's Post article by Wendy Kannar, a former teacher who

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<v Speaker 1>explains why our family doesn't allow toy guns, she said.

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<v Speaker 1>At least one retailer has already stopped selling some types

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<v Speaker 1>of toy guns. In February, when Walmart announced it would

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<v Speaker 1>raise the purchase age for firearms at its stores to

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<v Speaker 1>twenty one. The company also said that it would remove

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<v Speaker 1>from its website items resembling assault style rifles, including toys.

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<v Speaker 1>Walmart stopped selling actual modern sporting rifles, including the a

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<v Speaker 1>R fifteen back in. For all the anxiety and outrage

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<v Speaker 1>it stimulates, there's relatively little scientific research on the effect

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<v Speaker 1>that playing with toy guns has upon children, and although

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<v Speaker 1>some studies suggest it may be linked to aggressive behavior

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<v Speaker 1>in childhood, no clear connection has been established between childhood

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<v Speaker 1>play with toy guns and adult attitudes toward or propensity

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<v Speaker 1>for violence. Some psychologists who have done research on children

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<v Speaker 1>and toy guns think that parenting is a much more

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<v Speaker 1>important indicator of aggressive behavior. We spoke with Charles W. Turner,

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<v Speaker 1>a psychologist on the staff of the Organ Research Institute

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<v Speaker 1>who has more than forty years of experience conducting treatment

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<v Speaker 1>and prevention research on children, adolescents, and young adults with

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<v Speaker 1>behavior problems. Back in the mid nineteen seventies, he and

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<v Speaker 1>colleague Diane Goldsmith published one of the earliest papers on

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<v Speaker 1>the subject, in which they compared a group of children

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<v Speaker 1>who played with toy guns to another group who played

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<v Speaker 1>with toy airplanes and kids who played with other toys.

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<v Speaker 1>All were observed for signs of antisocial behavior, such as

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<v Speaker 1>aggression or rule breaking. Why the airplanes, Turner explains, the

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<v Speaker 1>purpose of the airplanes was to control for the fact

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<v Speaker 1>that you are introducing a novel toy. Is it the

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<v Speaker 1>novelty of the toy leading to the acting out, or

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<v Speaker 1>whether it's something specific about the gun. Turner and Goldsmith

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<v Speaker 1>found that the toy guns produced a reliably higher rate

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<v Speaker 1>of anti social behavior than the average of the toy

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<v Speaker 1>airplanes and the other toys, though the toy airplanes also

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<v Speaker 1>increased the rate of kids misbehaving as well. But today, Turner,

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<v Speaker 1>who moved on from what he calls hypothetical studies to

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<v Speaker 1>studying actual young offenders, cautions against reading too much into

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<v Speaker 1>his early work from a practical standpoint. He says it

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<v Speaker 1>would be hard to look at whether playing with guns

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<v Speaker 1>as a child affected attitudes as an adult. Based on

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<v Speaker 1>his own work as well as that of other researchers.

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<v Speaker 1>He suspects that playing with guns as a child is

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<v Speaker 1>one small part of a bigger picture of what leads

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<v Speaker 1>to adult aggressive behavior. It's a small, nearly trivial part.

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<v Speaker 1>He puts more weight on other influences, such as how

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<v Speaker 1>a family relates to a child and their pattern of interactions.

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<v Speaker 1>In a study published in the journal Early Education and

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<v Speaker 1>Development in researchers Malcolm W. Watson and Ying Peng observed

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<v Speaker 1>thirty six three to five year old children in free

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<v Speaker 1>play in a daycare center and coded their behavior for

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<v Speaker 1>the amount of reallygression, pretend aggression, ref and tumble play,

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<v Speaker 1>and non aggressive pretend play. They also had parents fill

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<v Speaker 1>out a questionnaire to gather data such as whether kids

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<v Speaker 1>played with toy guns at home mostly boys did, as

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<v Speaker 1>well as whether they watched TV programs with aggression and

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<v Speaker 1>the amount of physical punishment that parents used for discipline.

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<v Speaker 1>The researchers found that toy gun play, along with parental

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<v Speaker 1>punishment were associated with a higher level of real aggression,

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<v Speaker 1>though not with pretend aggression. We spoke via email with Watson,

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<v Speaker 1>who is the George and Francis Levin Professor of Psychology

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<v Speaker 1>at Brandeis University He said, there are so many factors

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<v Speaker 1>that act as antecedents to real aggression that this one

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<v Speaker 1>study could not evaluate the entire story. Various factors may

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<v Speaker 1>interact to increase the likelihood of aggression in children and

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<v Speaker 1>children developing long term aggressive tendencies. Watson explains the study

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<v Speaker 1>was designed to pit the cathartic theory of aggression, in

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<v Speaker 1>which aggressive fantasy play might reduce act will, frustration, and aggression,

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<v Speaker 1>with the queuing theory, in which toy guns and aggressive

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<v Speaker 1>play would act as cues and practice for real aggression.

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<v Speaker 1>He said, the more toy gun play that was used,

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<v Speaker 1>the more real aggression boys showed. In their preschool boys

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<v Speaker 1>showed much more toy gun play than did girls, and

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<v Speaker 1>probably because of this, there was no relation found between

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<v Speaker 1>toy gun play and real aggression in girls. Interestingly, we

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<v Speaker 1>also found that the more toy gun play that was used,

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<v Speaker 1>the less non aggressive pretend play, including pretend aggression, children showed,

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<v Speaker 1>and not aggressive pretend play is seen as a good

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<v Speaker 1>thing for children, he continued, So, in effect, there was

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<v Speaker 1>no evidence for a cathartic effect, but there was evidence

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<v Speaker 1>for a probable queuing effect playing with toy guns. Maybe

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<v Speaker 1>increased when some children already show more aggression, or reciprocally,

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<v Speaker 1>real aggression may be cued and increased when children play

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<v Speaker 1>more with toy guns. It just didn't seem that anything

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<v Speaker 1>good came from playing with toy guns. But Watson also

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<v Speaker 1>notes that the strongest factor that predicted real aggression in

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<v Speaker 1>preschoolers more than toy guns or watching violent TV, was

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<v Speaker 1>the amount and frequency of parents spanking their kids or

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<v Speaker 1>using other corporal punishment. Watson said, we have done subsequent

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<v Speaker 1>studies that showed the children who were more aggressive led

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<v Speaker 1>to parents using more corporal punishment over time, but that

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<v Speaker 1>the use of more corporal punishment led to even more

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<v Speaker 1>aggression in the children. Parental use of corporal punishment was

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<v Speaker 1>part of an ongoing negative spiral. He continued, I think

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<v Speaker 1>pretend play overall has a great influence on children's development

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<v Speaker 1>and thinking, and so I suspect that toy gun play

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<v Speaker 1>may have long term consequences. But I also suspect that

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<v Speaker 1>parental attitudes towards guns and also parents modeling of aggression

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<v Speaker 1>will have even stronger influences. Today's episode is based on

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<v Speaker 1>the article does playing with toy guns lead to later

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<v Speaker 1>acts of gun violence on how stuff works dot Com

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<v Speaker 1>written by Patrick J. Keiger. Rain Stuff is production of

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<v Speaker 1>I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com,

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<v Speaker 1>and it's produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my

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