Prof, says Americans numb to violence There is a trend in American culture cul-ture to embrace and encourage violence, vio-lence, and the prospects are frightening, fright-ening, say two Weber State College Col-lege professors. "Our society does promote violence. vio-lence. We say we don't like it, but we condone it. We use it for entertainment enter-tainment even," said Dr. W. Bruce Haslam, a Weber State psychologist. psycho-logist. Social psychologists long thought that viewing violence acted as a catharsis, a way to let off steam and drain a person's aggression aggres-sion tank. That notion has not proved workable, however, and most psychologists now feel that people do not have an aggression tank, and that, in fact, watching violence may actually cause a person per-son to become more aggressive. "Aggression begets aggression," aggres-sion," he said. Football is a prime example, he noted. How many can watch that game and come away feeling calm and serene? The opposite oppo-site is usually the case. "There are more fights on and off the field in competitive sports . than there have ever been. It used to be that families went to the game and had a good time. Now some parks have special sections for families, who want to go to the games without having to worry about ab-out possible fights or other problems." prob-lems." But it's not just on the field of competition that violence is evident. evi-dent. A recent rash of highway shootings in California, thieves who rob stores of a few dollars and then kill the attendants, and a sharp increase in all categories of violent crimes point to a culture that is fast losing its civilization. "We get calloused to it. We just say that's life, no big deal. So what," he said. The media plays a significant part in the socialization of violence. vio-lence. By the time a child is out of high school he has seen an average of 15,000 hours of television, a time commitment topped only by sleeping. sleep-ing. Those shows have included early morning cartoons, videos, and a myriad of police, detective and adventure shows that include violence as part of the excitement. "A child has seen an average of 18,000 fictional murders by the end of high school," Dr. Woodard said. Most researchers will not concede a direct link between watching TV or movies and violence. Some are not affected at all by what they see; but others are triggered into copying, Dr. Haslam said. "Even if they don't copy, it influences in-fluences how they feel about violence," vio-lence," he said. Besides those "entertaining" shows news reports keep people up to date with who's dying where. "It used to be that wars happened, but no one knew about it. Now you know by supper time," Dr. Haslam said. Many live almost daily with violence, vio-lence, the family expert said, "and we are learning to make it work for us." A large number now prefer violence to peace, and those feelings feel-ings often leave the family and enter en-ter the workplace to affect the rest of society. Dr. Woodard found in a study he conducted that members of families fami-lies where violence was present showed a high tendency to favor the use of nuclear weapons to solve international problems. "Family violence may precipitate precipi-tate national violence if people with those feelings are placed in key positions," he noted. Teenage males are the most likely like-ly to be violent, but young women are becoming more and more active, ac-tive, as well. Not long ago girls were mostly in trouble for shop lifting, lift-ing, running away, and the like. "Now there is a significant number of assaults where the girls will gang up and stomp on other girls and even on boys. It's not uncommon in some schools for girls to be intimidated in-timidated by other girls," Dr. Woodard said. Violence knows no social, or economic boundaries and younger and younger children are committing commit-ting more violent acts. On an individual, indi-vidual, family to family basis, the United States is one of the world leaders in violence and the prognosis prog-nosis for the future is not good. Dr. Woodard concurred, "We're getting a mind-set that's very favorable towards an Armageddon. We're on our way." "It's a malignancy. We talk about ab-out the AIDS disease, but that's nothing compared with this stuff," , he added.