paper 0-15-600592-1 A blazing diatribe against the media for its pernicious long-term effects on children’s minds. Addresing herself primarily to parents, Cantor offers anecdotal evidence, based on 15 years of extensive research, that “frightening media depictions,” from the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz to the more terrifying effects in Poltergeist, cause lasting damage. In fact, TV programs and movies are, insists Cantor (Communicaiton Arts/Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison), “the most preventable cause of nightmares and anxieties in children.” The fears they arouse are so intense that they can persist well into adulthood. While immediate reactions may be limited to clinging and crying, long-term repercussions can range from sleeping disorders to unreasonably acute fears, such as concern about being critically hurt or killed. Moreover, insists Cantor, shows that seem harmless may be subtly noxious, and it’s often difficult for parents to know what is happening to their children until it’s too late. In addition, children who view regular doses of violence, suggests Cantor, eventually become immune to it and start to seek out more intense levels of violence to get their thrills. There is also the danger, of course, that they can become violent themselves. But Carter’s admonition to parents to play a more active role—that of 24-hour watchdog—in monitoring what their children view is unrealistic. It would seem that children can be safeguarded from the media’s impact only in those few cloistered societies in which televisions and movies are banned. Cantor does, though, offer practical advice to parents in dealing with their children’s fears. A glass of water, a hug, and some comforting reassurance, for example, work best with younger children. All children should be encouraged to talk about their fears, and the focus should be on the unlikelihood of most of them being realized. A challenging, though somewhat hyperbolic, study.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-15-100402-1
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Insightful but not entirely convincing.
Psychology professors Solomon (Skidmore Coll.), Greenberg (Univ. of Arizona) and Pyszczynski (Univ. of Colorado, Colorado Springs) follow up their study of the psychological effects of 9/11 on the American population (In the Wake of 9-11: the Psychology of Terror, 2003) with a look at how the knowledge of mortality impacts human culture.
The authors’ contention that fear of death has been a primary driving force of human culture is controversial, but its relevance in incontestable. They began working together on the elaboration of what they now call “Terror Management Theory” in the 1970s when they were doctoral candidates in experimental social psychology. Although other species appear to mourn their dead, only humans are aware of their own mortality and terrified by this knowledge. “The awareness of death,” write the authors, “arose as a byproduct of early humans' burgeoning self-awareness…hurling our terrified and demoralized ancestors into the psychological abyss.” This inspired their creation of “a supernatural universe that afforded a sense of control over life and death” and the possibility of immortality. In the authors' view, it was the practice of religious rituals associated with these beliefs that spurred the development of social organization and technology, as well as medical advances. The authors offer accounts of their experiments as evidence to buttress their contention that under stress, we look for social stability. In one, subjects were asked to evaluate candidates’ statements in a hypothetical gubernatorial election. After subjects were given a reminder of death, their choices switched dramatically to favor a charismatic leader. Conversely, challenges to the accepted social order were shown to evoke thoughts of death. The authors also examine how we are motivated by conscious thoughts of death, subliminal reminders of which we are consciously unaware can elicit more powerful, potentially destructive defenses responses.
Insightful but not entirely convincing.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6747-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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