Researchers have found that violence adds nothing to youngsters' enjoyment of TV shows.
They found that children who watched cartoons liked those without violent scenes and enjoyed them.
Children do not apparently enjoy violent cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and the Simpsons.
A team of behavioural scientists at Indiana University challenged the conventional view held by television producers, who hope to achieve higher ratings with children's programmes featuring ever-increasing levels of violence.
A sample group of 128 school children, ranging from five to 11 years old, was used by the researchers to conduct the study.
Each child was shown one of four versions of a five-minute animated short created for the study, and then led them through a questionnaire.
They found that the violent content had an indirectnegative effect on whether boys enjoyed a programme.
Andrew Weaver, an assistant professor of telecommunications in the university's College of Arts and Sciences, said in journal Media Psychology: "You don't have to cram violence into these cartoons to get kids to like them. They'll like them without the violence, just as much if not more."
The results of the study may come as some surprise to those who grew up watching cat and mouse cartoon Tom and Jerry.
However，for many producers and media critics, the question is not if children love violence, but rather why children love violence.
Some of the findings suggest that as many as 70 percent of children's television shows containviolent content.


研究人员发现电视节目中的暴力镜头并不能给孩子们带来更多的乐趣。

他们发现孩子们更喜欢看一些没有暴力镜头的卡通片,并且还乐在其中。
像《猫和老鼠》、《辛普森一家》这样带有暴力色彩的卡通片，孩子们并不是很喜欢。

印度大学的一些行为科学家向死守着传统观念的电视制片人发起了挑战。这些制片人还盘算着通过给卡通片加入更多的暴力元素来提高收视率。


研究人员对介于5岁到11岁的128个在校孩子进行了测试研究。

研究人员给一部五分钟的动画短片做了四个版本，每个孩子只给观看其中一个版本，然后再做一个问卷调查。

研究结果发现，动画片的暴力内容给孩子们对影片的喜爱程度起到了间接的负面效果。

安德鲁•韦弗是印度大学文理学院电信学的一名副教授，他在《传媒心理学》杂志上说道："你根本不需要通过添加暴力镜头来让孩子们喜欢这些卡通作品，不含暴力内容的孩子们反而更喜欢，而且这些内容越少，他们就越喜欢。"

这项研究结果也许会令那些看着《猫和老鼠》系列卡通片长大的人大吃一惊。

但是，对于很多电视制片人和媒体评论员来说，问题不在于孩子们是否喜欢暴力内容，而是他们有什么理由要喜欢这些内容。
一些研究表明，70%的少儿节目中含有暴力内容。

• violence [´vaiələns] n.猛烈；暴力(行) (初中英语单词)
• violent [´vaiələnt] a.强暴的；猛烈的 (初中英语单词)
• achieve [ə´tʃi:v] vt.完成；达到；获得 (初中英语单词)
• sample [´sæmpl, ´sɑ:mpəl] n.样品；试样 vt.尝试 (初中英语单词)
• assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• contain [kən´tein] v.包含；容纳；抑制 (初中英语单词)
• enjoyment [in´dʒɔimənt] n.享受；愉快；乐趣 (高中英语单词)
• apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
• indiana [,indi´ænə] n.印第安纳(州) (高中英语单词)
• negative [´negətiv] a.否定的 n.否定词 (高中英语单词)
• psychology [sai´kɔlədʒi] n.心理(学) (高中英语单词)
• conventional [kən´venʃənəl] a.常规的；协定的 (英语四级单词)
• indirect [,indi´rekt] a.间接的；迂回的 (英语四级单词)
• weaver [´wi:və] n.纺织工；编织者 (英语四级单词)
• animated [´ænimeitid] a.栩栩如生的；活跃的 (英语六级单词)
• cartoon [kɑ:´tu:n] n.漫画；(电影)卡通片 (英语六级单词)