Exposure to violence making you less ethical

Between disturbing books, blood-soaked action movies, fashionably dark daily soaps and shoot-to-kill video games, we are regularly being exposed to an unprecedented array of violent acts, but can these make us more likely to lie, cheat or steal? A new study shows it may be the case.

The Brigham Young University study finds that exposure to human violence is strongly linked to an increase in cheating for monetary gain. In other words, violence may be making us less ethical.

Research shows that violent media increases aggressive behavior towards others, but what people are showing here is that it goes beyond that, said coauthor Josh Gubler.

Coauthor David Wood said that we have whole industries that glorify violence in video games, in media, in Hollywood and then, on the opposite side, we have a significant body of research showing very serious effects to this. There is a disconnect between what science is saying and what we choose to do in society.

Wood believes the society needs to have a really serious gut check and ask why people tolerate and glorify violence. He and Gubler said their study is the latest to show that violent media has more negative impacts than most people imagine.

The study is published in the Journal of Business Ethics.